It’s difficult to know what to feel let alone write.

To the outside world, Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha is the Thai duty-free billionaire who bankrolled the most incredible sporting story of our generation. Perhaps any generation.

To Leicester City supporters, like me, he is the man who allowed us dream, to stand at the top of the mountain, and give hope to every other fan of every other club that anything is possible.

Leicester owner Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha's helicopter crashed outside King Power Stadium

Srivaddhanaprabha was at the game but it isn't known if he was in the helicopter at the time

And to a local reporter covering his boyhood club to be a part of the most special of journeys.

So, to put into perspective and words quite how huge an impact Srivaddhanaprabha has had on Leicester - not just as a club but also a city - is a near impossible task.

Eight years before his family’s arrival in 2010, we did not know whether there would even be a club to support. Plunged into administration, life-long members of staff left with their belongings in cardboard boxes. The club was saved but on a shoe-string.

In 2008, the club were relegated into the third tier for the first time in their history.

So when the news broke that Leicester were to be purchased by a Thai family it brought with it both excitement —blimey, we needed it — but also trepidation. Unknown foreign owners hardly have the best rap.

Would they try to change the club’s name? Would we start playing in red? What happens if they put in loads of money, get bored, and pull it all out again?

None of that happened. Only investment and respect for tradition.

Popular owner Srivaddhanaprabha bankrolled the Leicester's shock title success in 2015-16

Srivaddhanaprabha loaned the club more than £100m in the first four years. Then he converted all of that into shares. That meant he could not just leave and take his money. The massive debts were wiped out. A club so close to the brink of demolition was now on solid ground.

In came players. Sometimes, too many players. The Sven-Goran Eriksson supermarket sweep did not work out as planned but it showed their intention. They wanted Leicester to compete.

When Leicester bought striker Ade Akinbiyi at the turn of the millennium for £5million that remained their record signing until 2014 when they spent £8m on Leonardo Ulloa.

Now, it’s Islam Slimani at £30m. They bid £40m for Gylfi Sigurdsson. This summer they spent more than £100m. For Leicester fans, this still feels ridiculous.

Even since winning the Premier League the investment has continued. A £100m training ground is in the pipeline, as is an expansion of the King Power Stadium.

Without Srivaddhanaprabha none of this would ever have been possible.

And he and his family have embraced Leicester as a city as much as they have the club.

A beaming Srivaddhanaprabha holds the Championship trophy aloft in May 2014

Over the past few years they have donated millions to local causes: £2m towards a new children’s hospital. Another million to the city’s university medical department.

For a man worth nearly $5 billion, it’s not life-changing sums of money. But to the people in Leicester who might need it one day, it certainly is.

Since Srivaddhanaprabha became chairman the club has only gone one way. Up. A Championship title, the Premier League title and a Champions League quarter-final.

He had to make some tough decisions along the way, too. But you don’t become a billionaire businessman by letting your heart rule your head.

Srivaddhanaprabha suffered the wrath of many outsiders with his decision to sack Claudio Ranieri - the man who had led them to their Premier League title.

How could he do that, they said? How could he treat Ranieri so terribly? That will always be a sad moment in Leicester’s history but the club had been tumbling towards relegation. Many supporters, deep down, knew it was the right decision. It was made, regardless of emotion, with the best intentions of the club at heart. As has every one Srivaddhanaprabha made before or since.

And he’s done this with Leicester fans rarely having heard him speak. At times there have been criticisms that Srivaddhanaprabha wanted to be centre of attention a bit too much: his face was the biggest on the front of the programme on the day they lifted the Premier League trophy. It was he and his family who spent longest carrying it round on the lap of honour.

They were slightly misjudged, perhaps, but such moments have been sparse. And, anyway, when the soaring fortunes of the club have rested solely on your investment, can you blame him all that much?

Srivaddhanaprabha also led Leicester to the promised land of the Champions League

For, in general, Srivaddhanaprabha is a private man. The decisions of the club are made by him and there are few confidents with whom he will discuss them.

In fact my first and only encounter with Srivaddhanaprabha across six years of covering the club was before my last match reporting on Leicester for the Mercury, the city’s regional newspaper.

Leicester manager Claude Puel had invited me into his office to wish me well and, midway through our chat, Srivaddhanaprabha arrived with his family to give Puel his good-luck message.

Srivaddhanaprabha is not a tall man. But there is an aura about him; a sense of authority. I was given a handshake and a hello.

This was ahead of Leicester’s defeat to Everton — the last time the club had at played at home before this visit of West Ham after which Srivaddhanaprabha’s helicopter crashed into flames.

As a first piece for a new employer, this was not the one anyone would have wanted to write.