Is Leicester's Premier League title win the greatest achievement in English football history?
- OPINION
The Foxes have written their names into the sporting annals, but how does this compare to other surprise successes?
Now all Leicester City must do, to complete the greatest football story ever written, is win the European Cup two years in a row.
For all the euphoria around the King Power, for all the plaudits cascading down on manager Claudio Ranieri, up in the celestial gallery there is a dissenting voice.
Leicester, the greatest long shots of all time? Sure, to win the title with a team after shopping for players at Lidl instead of Harrods is unsurpassed in a gilded age.
Since Andy Gray and Richard Keys invented football and called it the Premier League back in 1992, there is little scope for debate. Leicester's title triumph is the most astonishing of them all.
But they are not the first team from the East Midlands to catch the aristocrats asleep at the wheel.
Nottingham Forest did it 38 years ago – and went on to conquer Europe twice.
And much as their revered leader, Brian Clough, preached the ethics of playing football on grass, Forest were champions despite a lunar landscape surface at the City Ground.
Back in the 1970s, the financial gap between penthouse and cellar may not have been as wide, but nobody saw Forest's triumph coming, either.
“This is an enormous achievement by Leicester City,” said their former manager and Forest legend Martin O'Neill. “It's the biggest achievement of the century, the biggest achievement since Nottingham Forest did it.
“What Leicester have done is to redefine what the underdog is capable of.”
When O'Neill won the League Cup twice with Leicester, we thought they had touched the ceiling, but as hundreds of motorists turned the city centre into a communal car horn concerto deep into Monday night, Ranieri also redefined altitude for any ambitious football club: The sky is the limit.
So where do the Emperor Claudio's team rate among the champions of England? If Arsenal's unbeaten class of 2004 were the Invincibles, then Ranieri's 5,000-1 long shots are surely the Incredibles.
Blackburn Rovers were 'unfashionable' champions 21 years ago, and they staggered over the line on a dramatic final day when they lost to a stoppage-time winner at Anfield and Manchester United were held at West Ham in a blaze of near misses.
But owner Jack Walker's largesse set the template for Chelsea and Manchester City to follow: Throw enough money at the title race and the winning post will come to you.
Kenny Dalglish assembled a formidable squad, with Alan Shearer and Chris Sutton's 'SAS' double act supplying 49 goals and Tim Sherwood was a resourceful captain, but could Rovers have pulled off their heist without Walker's millions?
No chance – as schoolboys, Shearer and Dalglish did not lie awake at night dreaming of nights out at Ewood Park with Blackburn's former vice-president, an old bat called Margaret Thatcher.
But in the 21 years since Maggie's boys ruled the roost, there had been only four winners of the Premier League: Manchester United, Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester City.
Leicester have not just won a 38-game league: They have restored fantasy to the people's game and given every young fan a licence to dream.
There is an argument that romance prospered more in football before money hijacked its soul.
More than half a century ago, Ipswich Town won promotion to the top flight and took it by storm, bringing the title to East Anglia at the first attempt in 1961-62, setting a template for Forest to follow 16 years later.
The Tractor Boys who unseated Tottenham's Double winners were managed by a blunt, no-nonsense coach from Dagenham called Alf Ramsey – whatever happened to him? And bottom of the pile that season, without a rouble in sight to bail them out, were Chelsea.
Ipswich would have to wait almost two decades for a near-miss with the title under Bobby Robson, but they were edged out by Aston Villa, another champion team built on sound football principles more than a bank overdraft.
“Ipswich were the media darlings of a lot of the London press and we felt we didn't get the credit we deserved,” said Villa captain Dennis Mortimer, who lifted the European Cup in Rotterdam 34 years ago.
“I'll never get bored of talking about it, but I don't get reminded of it that much these days – it's usually me telling younger kids that Aston Villa won the European Cup. Some of them don't believe me, so they go away and Google it and say, 'Wow, they really did win it!' Yes we did – and it's something we'll always be proud of.”
So there you go, Leicester. You have turned the title race into English football's greatest adventure for at least a generation, but you have not yet climbed every mountain.
For what it's worth, this correspondent still believes Clough's Forest pushed back more boundaries than political correctness and remain the yardstick for miracles.
They were already champions before signing Trevor Francis as the first £1million footballer, and Francis repaid his fee by crash-landing in the shot-putt circle in Munich's Olympic Stadium in 1979, when his diving header won the European Cup final against Malmo.
They won a League Cup final at Wembley after Clough had insisted on a team bonding session with crates of ale the night before. Old Big 'Ead was a bit dilly-ding, dilly-dong himself, too.
And without pouring any cold water over Ranieri's wonderful team – the irrepressible Vardy, the magic feet of Mahrez, the ubiquitous Kante, the defensive feats of Schmeichel, Morgan and Huth – there has been, shall we say, a charitable tendency to overlook the club's great escape from administration in 2002.
Under a previous regime, Leicester were more than £30million in debt when the club was allowed to reinvent itself and leave a trail of unpaid bills with virtual impunity.
Read more: Player-by-player guide to the champions
Among those fleeced were Birse, the contractors who built the King Power stadium, who were forced to write off £5.5m they were owed, while the East Midlands ambulance service was never paid the £16,000 it was owed for providing emergency cover.
Much water has passed under the bridge since then, and Leicester even explored the muck and nettles of League One in the fall-out from insolvency.
But if your club has been docked points, and effectively relegated, for unruly finances since 2002, it was Leicester's escape from sanctions 14 years ago that drew a line in the quicksand.
There is less scope for recrimination that current chairman Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha converted another monster pile of £103million debts into equity in December 2013. Nice work if you can get it, but it's perfectly legal and the bills get paid.
Now Leicester City's accounts are in good order – they will pocket £24.7m in prize money for winning the title and at least £30m from next season's Champions League – we can celebrate their triumph for what it is: A fabulous, fabulous achievement by the best team in the land.
And who cares whether Forest, Villa, Ipswich or Blackburn's triumphs carried greater merit?
They will all be exchanging nostalgia in the Championship in August while Ranieri introduces Barcelona and Bayern Munich to dilly-ding, dilly-dong.
No comments:
Post a Comment