Wednesday 4 May 2016

Leicester City: Premier League Champions

The improbable became a reality last night when Leicester City became Premier League champions.

Just writing such a sentence seems ridiculous, bizarre and incredible in equal measures but it's a fact and over the last 12 months they have been without question the best team in England.


What I love about this story is that it transcends sport and football. It's a significant news story and this explains why its been the lead story on each news bulletin throughout the day. It's also a world wide story that's been covered across Europe, Asia and America.

I wrote a few weeks ago that Leicester winning the League would be the biggest achievement in English football and that remains the case. I identify with Leicester City as they are a similar club to my own team Birmingham City.

Like Birmingham Leicester have spent most of their history bobbing up and down between the two top divisions. Always too good for the old Second Division always struggling in the top flight.

For most of their fans winning the league was never a serious consideration and in the Premier League era it was something that all football fans accepted couldn't happen but we've all been proved wrong.

With stories like this you start thinking about the wider lessons Leicester's success can teach us. It gives people hope. In a football sense there are so many clubs of a similar size to Leicester who may now believe that can achieve more than they imagined.

There are bigger clubs like Everton, Newcastle, Villa and Sunderland who may be asking themselves that they should be doing much better but I think one thing Leicester's victory has shown is that things can change.

We've all just accepted that the same select group of super rich clubs will continue to keep winning the league and occupying the top places in the league but their own failings and complacency has shown their monopoly can be broken.

Perhaps I'm reading too much into things but in our society we see an elite super rich getting richer, we sometimes feel that nothing can change as the odds are stacked against us to change anything or overturn the 'natural' order but Leicester have shown that nothing is set in stone.

Perhaps I'm being overly optimistic and reading too much into things. It's quite possible that next season Leicester will finish mid table or in the bottom half of the league. But so what, they've achieved something that will be difficult to ever repeat. They've created history, put their unfashionable Midlands city on the map, given a shot in arm to football in England and across the world.

All I can say is, well done Leicester and thank you!



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