A small group of diehard “farang” (for those not familiar with the term farang, it is what Thais call all western foreigners) Buriram United supporters were approached by the club to help them in a rather “novel” venture. All we were told was to turn up at the ground wearing Buriram shirts at 10am on Saturday morning (August 19) to have a few photos taken.
We were certainly not prepared for what ensued. After being escorted to one of the entertainment rooms where water, donuts and chicken nuggets were on offer, the group was given a briefing by non-other than Buriram United’s owner Newin Chidchob.
We were informed that so as not to be confused with “real” footballers, some make-up would need to be applied. This caused several large beer-bellies to heave up and down in uncontrollable laughter.
It was also pointed out that during the shoot, we needed to show anger and aggression. Something that would be no problem for some of the group whereas others would have more difficulty.
Once the make-up had been applied we moved on to another room where a professional photographer was waiting. Individual photos were taken, first with a serious face and arms folded, then an animated shot displaying aggression.
Kuhn Newin was directing operations, giving advice, particularly for the action shots. He brought the house down when he said, “Come on guys, expose yourself !” He meant express of course ! True to form yours truly got a fit of the giggles whilst trying to be “aggressive” !
Eventually, all the photos were taken to Kuhn Newin’s satisfaction and we were left with the task of cleaning ourselves up. Various theories have been put forward regarding the purpose of the shoot, apparently the one that was mentioned earlier is not strictly accurate. Apologies !
A great morning and yet again we can say, “Only in Thailand !”