As of yesterday, the Leicester City FC website were still running a poll that read: “Where will Leicester City finish this season?” The options were: “A) Top 6; B) Mid Table; C) Relegation.” Perhaps they should have had another: “D) None of the above.” Or maybe: “E) Champions. LOL.”
Which should stand for Lots of Leicester after this week, and this season, when the shock of a team built on hope, trust, spit and sticky-tape became the shock leaders of the greatest league in the world. When they kept on winning, kept on leading and kept on keeping on, the world began to wonder if the madness would continue. Near the end, there were very few, Spurs fans aside, who were not screaming at them not to mess it up.
The Leicester fans have outed themselves. Engelbert Humperdinck, the singer, sent the team a video message on Twitter, saying he was a ‘proud son of Leicester’, who had turned 80 on the day City won the title. The “greatest gift I ever got in my life was the news that Leicester City won the Premiership. That’s just marvellous news. I got more calls about Leicester winning the Premiership than I got for my birthday.” Humperdinck was born in Chennai, India, but grew up in Leicester from the age of 10. So, more of a half-son, but, heck, he has a slight accent, and probably more hair than most of the City side.
There have been several ‘inside stories’ as English papers try to find the reason for this miracle. The Guardian pointed to a meeting between Claudio Ranieri and Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabha, son of Vichai, the Thai billionaire owner of the club who paid just £39-million for City in 2010. They discussed mutual players they admired and developed a relationship. The rest was a combination of luck, good planning and fate. As Stuart James wrote in The Guardian: “The truth is that even those on the inside at Leicester shake their heads in disbelief, half-expecting to rub their eyes one morning and realise it was all a dream. Nobody at Leicester would dare to claim that they saw this coming!”
The club worth around R400-million in 2010, could now make R3,2-billion, according to Repucom, a sports and entertainment intelligence analyst company.
My favourite story from this all, is Ranieri having lunch with his 96-year old mother on the day his team were crowned champions. Renata Ranieri said they had steak with chickory and strawberries with lemon and sugar. “We had some steak with chicory. Before leaving, he ate strawberries with lemon and sugar,” Renata told La Repubblica.
“At the final whistle (of the Spurs-Chelsea match) I burst into tears - I watched every game, it was a continual series of emotions. I have to admit, I did not expect him to win with Leicester. He found these players - they are good lads.” - The Srae