JOHN HARTSON today reveals his shock at being just yards from the horror helicopter crash at Leicester City on Saturday night.

The Celtic legend, still shaken by events, was working for BT Sport at the King Power Stadium covering Leicester’s Premier League game with West Ham United when the tragedy took place.

Hartson and his colleagues had watched the club’s owner Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha’s helicopter take off from the pitch, which happened at most home matches, and then heard a loud noise they soon were to learn was the crash.

All on board, Srivaddhanaprabha, Nursara Suknamai, Kaveporn Punpare and pilots Eric Swaffer and Izabela Lechowicz, a couple who it is believed saved hundreds of lives by directing the helicopter away from the crowds, lost their lives.

Hartson said: “We were on air, me, Jake Humphries, Owen Hargreaves and Chris Sutton, in a box and we heard ‘bang’. There is a clip of it doing the rounds on social media. That’s how close we were to the accident.

“We didn’t know what it was. In fact, we never took much notice of it. All of us had earpieces in, there was thick glass in the box, so we had no idea something so awful had happened.

“Then we go for a break and the news comes into the box via the producer was that the helicopter which had just taken off just a few minutes previously from the centre circle, and we watched it from not far away at all, had crashed in the stadium car park. I couldn’t believe it. None of us could.

“We didn’t know what to do. We had 20 minutes left on the show but we knew we couldn’t go back on and talk about football. A decision was made that Jake, who is a real pro, would address the viewing public about the terrible news but that he couldn’t say much more because at that time we didn’t really know what was happening.

“We then cut off air because the stadium was being evacuated.

“We couldn’t get back into the TV trucks because of the evacuation. It was chaos. Riot police, ambulances, the fire brigade. I’ve never seen anything like it. I’ve never seen so many police officers of every type in my life.

“It is a tragedy. What a blow for Leicester City Football Club. Mr Srivaddhanaprabha was one of the good guys. It wasn’t just the football because I think he was involved in all sorts of things in the city including a state of the art training facility.

“And that Premier League win in 2016 will go down as one of football’s greatest stories. It is just awful.”

On what was a terrible weekend for football, Glenn Hoddle earlier that day suffered a heart attack at the BT Studios in London.

Only the quick actions of a member of staff who administered CPR saved the life of one of England’s greatest players.

Hartson said: “I know Glenn very well having worked with him over the years. What a special player and he’s a really fantastic man, loved by everyone.

“We were all dealing with that news when the awful tragedy at Leicester happened. It was a terrible day. I just hope to see Glenn back on his feet very soon because he’s a great guy.”