Hull City's adrenaline junkie owner Acun Ilicali ready for Premier League rollercoaster
Acun Ilicali is an adrenaline junkie who likes taking risks with his own health but in Sergej Jakirovic he says he has found a Hull City coach who puts him at peace as he endures football matches he always expected to enjoy.
Jakirovic is the sixth full-time head coach Ilicali has employed since he took over the East Yorkshire club, and the one that led them to the Premier League by winning May's Championship play-off final.
Hull's charismatic owner admits watching football is not as much fun as he thought it would be since swapping the terraces for the boardroom in January 2022, but in Jakirovic he has found a coach he believes in.
Hull's play-off final win over Middlesbrough at Wembley had a dramatic finish, Oli McBurnie scoring the winner in the fourth minute of stoppage time.
Until then it was the antithesis of what Ilicali, a footballing romantic who made his money in entertainment, likes to see on a football field, with his side dropping deep, conceding possession and relying on a clinical edge on the counter-attack.
It put Ilicali through a couple of hours of agony only to end in ecstasy. The game was too slow for Ilicali's taste, yet he says it felt like going at 150mph in the speedboat he loves racing about in.
"How can I explain this?" he says. "You bought a club four years ago. You love the club, you love the people, you love the fans and you were living your dream enough being in the (Championship).
"Now we are promoted. Can you imagine how much happiness it gave to me? I promised our fans that I will give everything this year after the previous year's failure (when Hull only escaped relegation on goal difference).
"I apologised to them and I said I had time problems because of my responsibility in Fenerbahce (where he was a vice-president). I'm so happy that I kept my promise.
"It makes me so unhappy sometimes to make people sad that we get bad results and I feel responsible. This responsibility is the heaviest thing on your shoulder."
It made Wembley in May tortuous for him.
"Owning a club was not like I thought," he admits. "I thought I would enjoy the games.
"But instead of enjoying, you saw me in the final with no reaction for the goal. This was a kind of nerve crisis of saving the responsibility for a big club and making the public happy.
"I remember enjoying it so much when I supported my club (Fenerbahce) and they scored a goal. You are not responsible, you scream like crazy.
"Here, everything is on my shoulders. This was too much for me.
"I looked at my brother in the 70s (the 70th-79th minute at Wembley) and he just said to me, 'What a painful thing this is. We are having torture in the game of a club we own.
"I couldn't even answer him. I just said, 'You are right.'
"The final game was a slow game. Maybe 35 degrees, more or less.
"Anything can happen and one goal will change everything." Slow is not how Ilicali likes to do anything.
"I have speedboats," he says. "I sometimes go 140 miles per hour and we hit some waves, then we jump. If the boat flies, you are dead.
"I love adrenaline.
"When I go back to the land, I say, 'What did I do today?'
"When I think about this, I say, 'Acun, are you crazy? You go at 130mph in the air, in a boat.'
"We played a game that will change your life completely. How could I survive these 90 minutes? Adrenaline-wise, it is like going 150mph in a boat.
"But Sergej always gives you comfort. He is like an electric car, he doesn't make you get tired. He is always calm, relaxed. When you are with him, you don't feel pressure.
"I am very lucky to have a coach like him. We enjoy every moment. He was in Turkey with his family for a long week together (this summer). We enjoyed every moment.
"I made him play volleyball. I think his arms still ache. He was complaining but I was putting him into the next game again.
"After the third game he said, 'Acun, I am dead!' I said, 'Coach, we need you like you need your players.'
"He is a completely good character, a different character that gives you peace and happiness.
"Me, my friends, everybody is so happy and lucky to have him."
And now Ilicali has a new thrill to chase, with Hull's latest Premier League adventure beginning at home to Manchester United on August 22.
"It's like something you were dreaming, I wished it to happen and it happened, so now I'm counting down the days to see Manchester United on the pitch," he says.
"Nothing has changed, my life is completely too busy, so I cannot say that it can change my life, but it's a different mood, now you are in the Premier League and you are involved in transfers.
"The players we are dealing with are now bigger and bigger budget and quality players.
"It's a completely different motivation."