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Foxes' success makes for a superb season
Alec Swann
Expert
5th May, 2016
3
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Leicester City face off against Huddersfield Town. (Nigel French/PA via PA)
Alec Swann
Expert
5th May, 2016
3

Overhearing a passionate debate in a bar often throws up all kinds of gems.
Politics, sex, employment, kids, spouses. Nothing is off limits and when alcohol is added to the mix the humour/depravity/outlandishness is increased, often to the nth degree.

But I’ll ignore the above topics for now and concentrate instead on sport and, more specifically, football and Leicester City’s success in the English Premier League.

No doubt you know the story in all its ‘made for a future TV special documentary’ glory. Astronomical odds, a maverick Italian manager, unheralded signings, modest back stories of the main players. In fact, the whole lot.

It is nothing short of astonishing and the fact nobody, and this goes up to just a few weeks back, even thought to mention the Foxes as potential champions only adds to the fairytale nature of the episode.

Already there has been talk of their achievement changing the face of football in England forever. That’s highly unlikely as come August and next season there will still be wads of cash floating around, the big players on the scene will still be the big players and normality, if you can call it that, has every chance of being resumed.

And many have stated that the like of Leicester’s achievement will never be seen again, that it was a flash in the pan and nothing more. Well, if it can happen once then who is to say that it couldn’t be repeated?

These are merely hypothetical arguments as the future, unless you’re in possession of a DeLorean with a flux capacitor, hasn’t arrived yet and what Leicester have managed to do is to breath new life into a competition that, for all its hype, offered little in the way of spectacular narrative at the top end of the table.

Going back to pub conversations, one comment that stuck in the mind from Monday evening was “it’s a crap season when a team like Leicester can win it. If Chelsea, (Manchester) City and Arsenal had been better they wouldn’t have won it”.

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Ignore the second sentence as ‘if’ I’d won the lottery last week I’d be a millionaire, and concentrate on the first.

There must be a temptation to consign it to the metaphorical dustbin but I doubt the bloke who said it is in a minority of one. In fact, given some of the coverage in the press and broadcast media over the past couple of months, I know for a fact he isn’t.

Scores of unpredictable results and those who have traditionally dominated the all-important top four places suffering drops in form have all contributed to a season that can be placed in the bracket marked average. This has been stated on too many occasions to take note of and depressingly so.

In fact, as a rebuttal to the original comment, a team like Leicester winning the title makes the season the exact opposite of crap.

A club coming from nowhere (or the brink of relegation 12 months ago) to take the biggest prize is a far better advert for the league than watching a Saudi oil magnate plough millions into a handful of vastly overpriced stars and watch his new toys trample over the competition.

It is sport as sport is meant to be. You can’t have professional football without money playing an integral part – of course you can’t – but seeing the almighty pound, just for a change, usurped by the virtues of sound management, tactical awareness, shrewd recruitment and admirable resilience has been uplifting to witness.

The landscape is bound to change for Claudio Ranieri and his charges in the 2016-17 campaign as their European commitments – as an aside, it will be good to see those who see the Champions League as a right being gatecrashed by a new kid on the block – will provide an additional challenge.

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As will the hefty offers that the likes of Jamie Vardy, N’Golo Kante and Riyad Mahrez will no doubt attract when the transfer window opens for summer business, but that is life.

Is it the biggest sporting shock of all? Who knows and, in the grand scheme of things, does it really matter anyway?

Sport has the ability to serve up the unexpected and Leicester’s triumph has, even to those diehard supporters who placed a bit of money on such an occurrence way back in the summer, been as surprising as they come.

Ranieri et al’s moment in the sun has made it an excellent Premier League season.

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Alec Swann
Expert
Alec Swann is a former Northants and Lancashire opener turned cricket writer. Outside of the joys of a Test match, Newcastle United and golf generally occupy his other sporting interests with a soft spot for the Newcastle Knights.

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