Ball boys fail to spoil City's day

One of them earned himself a long, hard glare from Tony Warner, another came under fire when Darren Huckerby took aim at an advertising board - all in a day's work for Leicester City's ball boys.

One of them earned himself a long, hard glare from Tony Warner, another came under fire when Darren Huckerby took aim at an advertising board - all in a day's work for Leicester City's ball boys.

It was the multi-ball system, and the instructions on how it was to be used, that upset City boss Peter Grant.

“It's this law, when you have this multi-ball system,” he said. “All of a sudden we are 1-0 down and the balls disappear. Then they fling two on at a time so they get it banned so the ref says no more multi-ball and we are the ones that suffer for it.

“But I think it came back to haunt Leicester. It was interesting that when we scored to make it 2-1, all of a sudden the multi-ball was back in.”

Huckerby's anger almost boiled over in the second half when the ball was slow coming back into play - when it did come, Huckerby fired it back into the boards as a warning, earning him boos for the rest of the match.

Warner found one ball boy reluctant to roll the ball back to him the full distance as he waited to take a goal-kick - earning the youngster a long-hard stare - but was philosophical.

“It's the way it is,” he smiled. “They get told to slow the play down or up the pace when they are losing. It's just frustrating when you have to go through 90 minutes of it. After the first minute they were rolling the ball back really slowly.

“It's frustrating, but that's part and parcel of the game and I think if I were a manager I'd say the same thing.”