If you were looking for somewhere to base a fairytale, Leicester wouldn’t be your first choice. Profoundly Middle England, it has a non-descript city centre spiced up by an abundance of curry houses and a rugby team who win more often than they lose.
It also houses the remains of a hunchback English King and the Premier League champions. Both of these fit snugly into a fairytale narrative, but Leicester isn’t a land of fairytales.
It’s a place where things have to be fought for. So it came to pass that York City Council lost their legal challenge to have Richard III reinterred to the place of his birth in 1452. He died in Leicester and in Leicester’s cathedral he shall remain.
Incidentally in the season Leicester have been crowned Kings of England, York were relegated from the football league. It seems the ancient Yorkshire capital is not prone to fairytales either.
The Premier League title that has seen Leicester plastered all over the front pages from Bangkok to Boston is no fairytale either, no matter how many times it is described as thus by journalists looking for a shorthand way to explain a 5,000/1 shot winning world football’s richest prize.
Gokhan Inler.
There is a man who would struggle to describe this incredible triumph as a fairytale. Leicester fought off competition from a number of clubs to sign the Swiss midfielder for a (presumably not inconsiderable) undisclosed fee from Napoli during the summer.
Seen as the perfect replacement for the Greece-bound Esteban Cambiasso, Inler thus far has played 131 minutes of Premier League football.
The contribution of Gokhan to this title ranks just above Gok Wan, arguably Leicester’s most famous non-football son.
The classy Serie A maestro was quickly cast aside when Claudio Ranieri realised he was not the linkman his hard-working, counter-attacking team needed.
No, that man was the perma-running, perma-smiling N’Golo Kante. The £5.4m signing from Caen who drives a mini and is reportedly adored by everyone attached to the club. Identified and fought for by head of recruitment Steve Walsh, Kante has been arguably the most influential player of the season.
Inler’s ability to speak three languages means he is best buddy to English-novice Shinji Okazaki, but that was hardly the fairytale he envisaged when he left the south of Italy for the East Midlands.
Okazaki was signed from Mainz to replace Andrej Kramaric. The club’s record signing at £9m, Kramaric was offloaded on loan to Hoffenheim earlier this year because he was another who didn’t fit into the gameplan.
If it was a fairytale you would have thought one-club man Andy King would have started more than seven games.
It is easy to subscribe some sort of cuddly quality to Leicester’s glory. Ranieri, with his trips to the pizzeria, city breaks to Copenhagen, his “dilly dings” and his “dilly dongs”, and the fact he would rather have lunch with his 96-year-old mother in Rome than prowl around the training ground or watch the Sky Sports build-up to Chelsea’s 2-2 draw with Tottenham.
A New Hope #Leicester @LCFChttps://t.co/0qaAOXELmQ
— SportsJOE (@SportsJOEdotie) May 2, 2016
But supporting Leicester isn’t cuddly. It is not a sensible option, nor an easy one. While Martin O’Neill’s muscular and motley crew won the Coca Cola Cup in my early years of following them, it did not lead to the belief that glory would stalk me at every turn.
Nor did the second in 2000.
Since the turn of the Millennium they have been relegated as many times as they have been promoted (three), including that ignominious trip to the third tier in 2008-09. Of the past 16 seasons this is only the fifth in the Premier League.
You don’t support Leicester for days like this, because you would be an idiot to expect them. You support them for days like Easter Monday 2009, when I was in the King Power (then the Walkers Stadium) to see the Foxes all but confirm their promotion back to the Championship with a 1-0 win over Leeds.
Two big teams down on their luck separated by a Steve Howard header from a corner. It felt good, it felt right. Today feels almost obscene in comparison.
My first Leicester match. 4-2 to Chelsea, Zola scored a pearler and home fans chucked coins at travelling support. pic.twitter.com/HjLp4qZyWX
— Mikey Stafford (@me_stafford) May 3, 2016
Chelsea were there when it all started for me. Gianfranco Zola scoring two at Filbert Street as Gianluca Vialli’s men recorded a 4-2 win in a fractious atmosphere at the old ground. Coins were thrown and mounted police deployed – the teenage greenhorn from Wexford thought this happened every week.
For the most part supporting Leicester is eventful without ever taking over your life. Defeats will follow defeats, wins will come along and surprise you and relegation is just a precursor to promotion.
But this sudden change in fortunes (and considering Leicester were bottom of the Premier League 13 months ago it is a sudden change of fortunes) cannot be written off as a fairytale. That does this team an injustice.
This team of mature (the average age is close to 30) professionals who, for the most part, have spent their careers preparing for something much below this.
Kasper Schmeichel may have a Premier League medal, but he has still played more games in League 2 than the top flight. Wes Morgan was into his fourth decade and 15th season as a professional by the time he tasted Premier League football.
Danny Simpson and Jamie Vardy have both had run-ins with the law during careers that, until this season, never looked like leaving a lasting impression on the zeitgeist.
Marc Albrighton was cast aside by Aston Villa, for heaven’s sake.
But all these misdemeanours, disappointments and trials have shaped this resolute group. A group perfectly managed by a wily Italian whose last job with Greece ended in ignominy and home defeat to the Faroe Islands.
When Danny Welbeck struck for that late winner at the Emirates and the gap was closed to two points at the top others would have panicked. Not Ranieri, although many looking in thought giving the players a week’s holiday was a sign of weakness.
Instead they returned from their breaks revived, their incredible team spirit strengthened, and went on to claim 19 points from a possible 21. Arsenal took nine.
CHAMPIONS!!!! pic.twitter.com/pFtvo5XUNx
— Christian Fuchs (@FuchsOfficial) May 2, 2016
So, don’t try and explain it away as a “fairytale”. We could talk about the billions of the Srivaddhanaprabha family and the groundwork laid by Nigel Pearson (who was in charge, first time round, for that 1-0 defeat of Leeds).
We could talk about countless, realistic factors that contributed to this least realistic of outcomes. But I’d rather leave the last word to Leicester’s greatest writer – the incomparable Sue Townsend, who gave the world teenage neurotic Adrian Mole and his diaries.
Pauline: “All under-fives are mad Adrian, you used to talk to the moon. You invited it to your birthday party and cried when it didn’t turn up.”
George: “When it went dark and the moon came up, you ran outside and threw a sausage roll at it!”
In the town where the hunchback king lies, one underdog threw a sausage roll and the moon caught it.
That may sound like a fairytale but it’s not. It’s just fabulous.
