The City of Leicester is in a state of ‘bonkers’. The whole place. There’s nothing much else to do there so you might as well do that bonkers thing. And ‘bonkers’ is good. Its the nice side of mob rule, the happy bit. Blue and white wigs, blue-and-white face paint, pretty much anything blue and white will enhance the whole bonkers thing greatly. So while your league-winning team are having a team lunch in a local Italian, you stand round outside, probably getting really hungry and… errr… and wait for them to finish. That’s what you do. “They’re all in there” goes the thought, “so we’re out here! And its brilliant. Its as if… errr… well, they’re all in there. Eating! Brilliant!!” Said Doris Maythorpe, 74, a ‘lifelong Leicester fan’. Since March’.

But you know what: if it was Spurs, I’d do it. Je suis Doris Maythorpe. I’d wait outside the kebab shop where the team were having their celebration lunch and just wait. And wait. And wait. How long does it take to eat a kebab, for fuck’s sake?

Leicester were promoted to the Premiership in 2014, having won the Championship. They had an indifferent first season and by February of 2015 were sunk at the bottom of the table, loads of points adrift from the pack. Hopeless. Gone. But…

But they started to put a few wins together. Which itself was a far greater achievement than winning those same games this year from the top of the table. Losing is a mind-set and becomes a habit. Winning is too. But when you’re bottom of the pile, its very hard to pull free. Yet they did.

Basically they haven’t stopped winning since. Under Claudio Ranieri they found a new belief. And the same team that languished at the bottom were invigorated by the Italian’s something or other. Jamie Vardy was just an ordinary zombie, eating the flesh of humans, working in a dirty place when he was spotted by Leicester. Riyadh Mahrez was home in Marakesh training to be a snake-charmer when Leicester scooped him up and made him player of the year. So the legends will grow. The whole team cost less than a pizza.

I personally ‘blame’ the owner. The club was bought in 2010 by a Thai billionaire for just under 40 million quid. What can now be termed ‘a bargain’. Somewhat. Next years income will start at £150mil. Curiously though, the team’s fortune really turned when the owner changed his name. Something Thais apparently do, with royal blessing. So he became Mr Srivaddhanaprabha. He wanted something catchy that just slipped off the tongue. If you put that on a football shirt, at 85p a letter, you’d go bankrupt. But he did that in 2012 and the rest is (in the process of becoming) history.

Bookies will no longer be offering very long odds. 5000 to 1 on Leicester? Those days are done, said a man from Corals. So if you fancy a punt on Burnley to win the league next year, better place your bet early otherwise you’ll only get 5 to 1. Bookies don’t like losing. They like YOU losing.

Happy Leicester day (one of many to come)

A xxxx