Thailand’s football club system is a three-tier cake with the Premier League sitting on top like a cherry.
The third division is where the young and hungry compete for a place in the professional game. More than 75 teams are spread across six regions of the Kingdom: the North, Northeast, West, Central Thailand, East and South.
Lose your place in the Third Division and the next stop is the semi-professional leagues, where the chances of using football as a social elevator become considerably slimmer.
That is why the emotional stakes in Third Division football are surprisingly high. For many players, the outcome is not simply a matter of league position. It can become a rather dramatic question of what their lives will look like next.
Going back to where you started is always a defeat.
But how “professional” is the business of football once you actually manage to stay in the table?
A Club with Several Lives
Let’s start with the history.
This year marks 16 years of organized football in Phuket, and the local club has had quite a journey in that time. It has changed owners, status and names, while the island’s football community has watched its fortunes rise and fall, complained about its management and defended it through one managerial scandal after another.
Whatever happened behind the scenes, however, the club itself remained firmly in the hearts of local supporters.
Its first incarnation began in 2009, when Phuket FC climbed from the Third Division into the Second and managed to establish itself there.
The team became a local favorite and acquired a rather magnificent nickname: the Andaman Kirins.
A kirin is a mythical creature — in this case, a red-and-yellow hybrid of a dragon and a horse.
For years, the club hovered around the middle of the table, attempting to break into the promotion places for the First Division.
Unfortunately, the trajectory eventually turned downward.
After a series of increasingly damaging defeats, the Kirins dropped back into the Third Division in 2015 — and landed right at the bottom of it.
A year later, financial problems began to surface. Coaches went unpaid, debts accumulated and, eventually, bankruptcy followed.
In 2017, the club was dissolved.
Phuket was once again left without an official football team of its own.
Two years later, in 2019, another attempt was made to put Phuket back on Thailand’s football map.
The newly formed Patong City FC did not even begin by claiming a place in the official club hierarchy. It was an amateur team playing in the Thailand Amateur League.
But the players were ambitious enough to earn promotion into the fourth tier of Thai football and began competing there successfully — until the pandemic arrived in 2020 and effectively removed the Fourth Division from the football landscape altogether.
On paper, Patong City was automatically moved into the Third Division.
On the balance sheet, however, the club had run out of money.
The Lobsters Arrive
In 2022, the club was given another chance at resurrection.
Two people led the revival: Russ Horsley, a British manager and UEFA-certified coach, and his Thai partner Amonrat Khuepphat, the owner of a sports complex and a women's clothing boutique.
They rebranded the club, gave it a new name, assembled a new squad and rented a pitch in neighboring Phang Nga province.
In short, they appeared to be doing everything required to send the new club climbing through the divisions.
After all, history had shown that the Andaman Kirins were never particularly good at giving up.
Now that the lessons had supposedly been learned, there was even an opportunity to channel a little Roman Abramovich energy and give the “ship” a new name: Phuket Andaman FC.
The new owners, however, did not immediately get the fairytale they were presumably hoping for.
In their first season under the new management, the players — competing in the Thai Third Division — began conceding goals with depressing consistency. Occasional victories disappeared beneath a tide of draws and defeats.
The former Kirins, now rechristened the Lobsters, spent most of their post-resurrection existence hovering around the middle of the table at best, only to sink again toward the bottom of the Southern Region standings.
Meanwhile, reports of questionable management began appearing in the media. It increasingly became clear that the problem was not simply football.
The club was struggling organizationally.
The Lobsters’ most recent victory, against Yalla, was less a victory than a survival operation. Both teams were in danger of dropping out of the league altogether if they lost. They produced a dull but dependable defensive performance, keeping the score at 0–0 until the 93rd minute. Then Phuket were awarded a penalty.
Putthipong converted it. With one kick, he bought his club another season in the league.
For now, Phuket Andaman FC sit 11th — last in the Southern Region.
Victory Against All Odds
There is now one more season in which to restore the club’s former glory — and, perhaps, to persuade those directly responsible for the club to answer some rather uncomfortable questions about management and unpaid wages.
After a series of media reports, it emerged that the players had not been receiving their salaries. They were, quite literally, running onto the pitch on moral courage alone.
The victory over Yalla was therefore not so much for something as in spite of everything.
The supporters began to understand that the Andaman side’s problems were not necessarily about the quality of football.
They were about the conditions under which that football was being played.
It was hard not to remember the spectacular winning matches of the legendary Phuket FC — games in which the team played with unpredictable boldness and yesterday’s favorites suddenly found themselves looking up at Phuket on the table.
Those days now feel rather distant.
The Office Is a Mess
As for the club’s current management, the situation remains, to put it politely, murky.
Russ Horsley has largely disappeared from public view, apart from a handful of appearances on football-related podcasts where little concrete information about the club’s future has emerged.
The club currently does not even have a stadium of its own.
And then there are the scandals that would almost be funny if they were not so damaging.
At one point, foreign members of the squad reportedly did not have the work permits required to work in Thailand. It is difficult to imagine a more revealing symbol of administrative chaos. Thailand’s football hopefuls were, thanks to what appears to have been sheer bureaucratic negligence, training illegally while holding tourist stamps.
That tells you quite a lot about what may be happening inside the club offices.
Five Seasons to the Top
Back when the club was resurrected, Horsley had a clear and ambitious plan.
The stated goal was to take Phuket Andaman from the Third Division to the First within five seasons.
Today, the more immediate question is whether the club will even survive long enough to start the next one.
Everything now depends on management — and on the actions of the particular people responsible for keeping the club alive.
The players, meanwhile, have shown both ability and a genuine desire to play. And that may be the most frustrating part of the whole story. The footballers have done their job.
Now, if Phuket Andaman is ever going to burn brightly again, it needs something rather less glamorous than another heroic goal in the 93rd minute.
It needs Russ Horsley to demonstrate his level of responsibility — and, quite simply, his willingness to pay.
The third division is where the young and hungry compete for a place in the professional game. More than 75 teams are spread across six regions of the Kingdom: the North, Northeast, West, Central Thailand, East and South.
Lose your place in the Third Division and the next stop is the semi-professional leagues, where the chances of using football as a social elevator become considerably slimmer.
That is why the emotional stakes in Third Division football are surprisingly high. For many players, the outcome is not simply a matter of league position. It can become a rather dramatic question of what their lives will look like next.
Going back to where you started is always a defeat.
But how “professional” is the business of football once you actually manage to stay in the table?
A Club with Several Lives
Let’s start with the history.
This year marks 16 years of organized football in Phuket, and the local club has had quite a journey in that time. It has changed owners, status and names, while the island’s football community has watched its fortunes rise and fall, complained about its management and defended it through one managerial scandal after another.
Whatever happened behind the scenes, however, the club itself remained firmly in the hearts of local supporters.
Its first incarnation began in 2009, when Phuket FC climbed from the Third Division into the Second and managed to establish itself there.
The team became a local favorite and acquired a rather magnificent nickname: the Andaman Kirins.
A kirin is a mythical creature — in this case, a red-and-yellow hybrid of a dragon and a horse.
For years, the club hovered around the middle of the table, attempting to break into the promotion places for the First Division.
Unfortunately, the trajectory eventually turned downward.
After a series of increasingly damaging defeats, the Kirins dropped back into the Third Division in 2015 — and landed right at the bottom of it.
A year later, financial problems began to surface. Coaches went unpaid, debts accumulated and, eventually, bankruptcy followed.
In 2017, the club was dissolved.
Phuket was once again left without an official football team of its own.
Two years later, in 2019, another attempt was made to put Phuket back on Thailand’s football map.
The newly formed Patong City FC did not even begin by claiming a place in the official club hierarchy. It was an amateur team playing in the Thailand Amateur League.
But the players were ambitious enough to earn promotion into the fourth tier of Thai football and began competing there successfully — until the pandemic arrived in 2020 and effectively removed the Fourth Division from the football landscape altogether.
On paper, Patong City was automatically moved into the Third Division.
On the balance sheet, however, the club had run out of money.
The Lobsters Arrive
In 2022, the club was given another chance at resurrection.
Two people led the revival: Russ Horsley, a British manager and UEFA-certified coach, and his Thai partner Amonrat Khuepphat, the owner of a sports complex and a women's clothing boutique.
They rebranded the club, gave it a new name, assembled a new squad and rented a pitch in neighboring Phang Nga province.
In short, they appeared to be doing everything required to send the new club climbing through the divisions.
After all, history had shown that the Andaman Kirins were never particularly good at giving up.
Now that the lessons had supposedly been learned, there was even an opportunity to channel a little Roman Abramovich energy and give the “ship” a new name: Phuket Andaman FC.
The new owners, however, did not immediately get the fairytale they were presumably hoping for.
In their first season under the new management, the players — competing in the Thai Third Division — began conceding goals with depressing consistency. Occasional victories disappeared beneath a tide of draws and defeats.
The former Kirins, now rechristened the Lobsters, spent most of their post-resurrection existence hovering around the middle of the table at best, only to sink again toward the bottom of the Southern Region standings.
Meanwhile, reports of questionable management began appearing in the media. It increasingly became clear that the problem was not simply football.
The club was struggling organizationally.
The Lobsters’ most recent victory, against Yalla, was less a victory than a survival operation. Both teams were in danger of dropping out of the league altogether if they lost. They produced a dull but dependable defensive performance, keeping the score at 0–0 until the 93rd minute. Then Phuket were awarded a penalty.
Putthipong converted it. With one kick, he bought his club another season in the league.
For now, Phuket Andaman FC sit 11th — last in the Southern Region.
Victory Against All Odds
There is now one more season in which to restore the club’s former glory — and, perhaps, to persuade those directly responsible for the club to answer some rather uncomfortable questions about management and unpaid wages.
After a series of media reports, it emerged that the players had not been receiving their salaries. They were, quite literally, running onto the pitch on moral courage alone.
The victory over Yalla was therefore not so much for something as in spite of everything.
The supporters began to understand that the Andaman side’s problems were not necessarily about the quality of football.
They were about the conditions under which that football was being played.
It was hard not to remember the spectacular winning matches of the legendary Phuket FC — games in which the team played with unpredictable boldness and yesterday’s favorites suddenly found themselves looking up at Phuket on the table.
Those days now feel rather distant.
The Office Is a Mess
As for the club’s current management, the situation remains, to put it politely, murky.
Russ Horsley has largely disappeared from public view, apart from a handful of appearances on football-related podcasts where little concrete information about the club’s future has emerged.
The club currently does not even have a stadium of its own.
And then there are the scandals that would almost be funny if they were not so damaging.
At one point, foreign members of the squad reportedly did not have the work permits required to work in Thailand. It is difficult to imagine a more revealing symbol of administrative chaos. Thailand’s football hopefuls were, thanks to what appears to have been sheer bureaucratic negligence, training illegally while holding tourist stamps.
That tells you quite a lot about what may be happening inside the club offices.
Five Seasons to the Top
Back when the club was resurrected, Horsley had a clear and ambitious plan.
The stated goal was to take Phuket Andaman from the Third Division to the First within five seasons.
Today, the more immediate question is whether the club will even survive long enough to start the next one.
Everything now depends on management — and on the actions of the particular people responsible for keeping the club alive.
The players, meanwhile, have shown both ability and a genuine desire to play. And that may be the most frustrating part of the whole story. The footballers have done their job.
Now, if Phuket Andaman is ever going to burn brightly again, it needs something rather less glamorous than another heroic goal in the 93rd minute.
It needs Russ Horsley to demonstrate his level of responsibility — and, quite simply, his willingness to pay.
The Splendors and Miseries of the Third Division
Original text translated by Claude