The Leicester City Story

THE INCREDIBLE AS-IT-HAPPENED STORY OF LEICESTER CITY’S MARCH TO PREMIER LEAGUE VICTORY In August 2015 bookmakers priced Leicester at 5000-1 to win the Premier League – the same odds as Elvis being found alive. On 2 May 2016, the impossible happened – Leicester won, to ecstatic celebrations in the city and around the world. Relive this remarkable season with Rob Tanner, the Leicester Mercury ’s chief football writer, from the great escape of 2015 to the curtain-closer at Stamford Bridge, via Ulloa’s last-gasp winner at Norwich and Vardy’s stunning volley against Liverpool. Detailing the key matches and turning points, Tanner’s book tells the inside story of Leicester City’s heroic year of triumph – and the players who under Claudio Ranieri’s inspired leadership became the most unlikely champions in football history.

“The odds of the Foxes winning the Premier League at the start of the season were the same as the Yeti or the Loch Ness Monster being proven to exist, Christmas being the warmest day of the year in England or Barack Obama playing cricket for England after he left the Oval Office.” —ESPN On March 21, 2015, Leicester City lost their sixth game in eight matches. Without a victory for two months, they were rock bottom of the English Premier League, heading for certain relegation to the lower division, and about to miss out on a once-in-a-lifetime financial bonanza of TV money and opportunity. As usual, London and Manchester would clean up, the rich would get richer, and the hopes of the small, overlooked, multicultural city would sink. But Leicester started to win. They stayed up; and in the new season they kept on winning. Favorites for relegation, rank outsiders as potential champions (their 5000—1 odds were the longest in the world for any major sporting event), their entire squad had been assembled for less than the cost of a single player for Manchester City. Still, they beat Manchester City and Liverpool, Tottenham and Chelsea: the most incredible cast of written-offs, grafters, misfits, and journeymen came together for the season of their lives. This is the story every underdog dreams of, every small town with a much larger, more affluent neighbor hopes for, and a triumph that defies logic and expectation.

The Sunday Times Bestseller and Number 1 Sport Book of 2016 'A tale that's truly inspirational' The Sun An ordinary lad from Sheffield, Jamie Vardy has become known as an against-the-odds footballing hero the world over. Yet a few years ago, things couldn’t have been any more different. Rejected as a teenager by his boyhood club, Jamie thought his chance was gone. But from playing pub football and earning £30 a week at Stocksbridge Park Steels, while still working in a factory, his off-the-cuff performances saw him rise. Jamie had a wild and turbulent youth, but football became his saving grace and, once he filled his boots with goals at FC Halifax Town and Fleetwood Town, he moved to Leicester City. After the miracle of surviving relegation, the team of unlikely outsiders bonded together to achieve the unthinkable: Jamie set the record as the first player to score in 11 consecutive Premier League matches and Leicester beat odds of 5000-1 to become champions. Jamie has now been nominated for the Ballon d’Or, firmly establishing himself as one of England’s leading goal scoring footballers. Not forgetting his roots, however, he has set up the V9 Academy in a bid to find the next big talent from non-league football. Defying all expectations, this is the story of the boy from nowhere who reached the top in his own unflinching, honest words.

A delightful tale of victory against all odds from master storyteller, Michael Morpurgo, lavishly illustrated by Michael Foreman.

**A REVISED AND SIGNIFICANTLY UPDATED EDITION OF ROB TANNER'S 5000-1- NOW COVERING THE FIVE YEARS SINCE LEICESTER CITY'S INCREDIBLE PREMIER LEAGUE TITLE WIN.** On 2 May 2016, English football was spectacularly altered as 5000-1 longshots Leicester City were crowned Premier League champions. Their victory broke a long-standing monopoly at the top of the table, and propelled the club into the Champions League for the first time. In The Leicester City Story: Five Years On, acclaimed Athletic Leicester City correspondent Rob Tanner relives City's title win, their summer of celebration and the highs and lows of the next five years that led to their first FA Cup win in 2021. Detailing the dramatic changes in the club's management since 2016, and reflecting on the great legacy of the club's much-loved owner, Khun Vichai, Tanner tells the inside story of a remarkable team still on the rise.

I had a hunch we’d be champions! The most unlikely story in the history of sport, told by our greatest football writer

Dave Smith and Paul Taylor produced the first edition of this book more than 25 years ago. This giant Champions Special Edition is truly all-inclusive, bang up-to-date and more comprehensive than anything that has gone before. Not only are the 550-plus large-size pages packed with the fruit of years' worth of diligent research, they're also eminently readable and enjoyably dippable. Once again, the club's history is presented from three different viewpoints: a narrative history; a complete who's who covering every first-class player; and a complete set of season-by-season results, scorers, and line-ups, covering every first-class fixture, and much, much more. And, of course, there is comprehensive coverage of the fairy tale that was 2015/16.

At the beginning of April 2015, newly-promoted Leicester City were seven points adrift at the foot of the Premier League. What happened next was truly extraordinary. Not only did Leicester pull off one of the great escapes to survive in the top flight but they continued their form into the following season. The manager who orchestrated Leicester’s promotion and survival, Nigel Pearson, had left the club by then, replaced by the former Chelsea, Juventus and Roma manager Claudio Ranieri. The press gave “the Tinkerman” no hope of staying the course and the bookies installed Leicester as one of the favourites to be relegated. They were priced at 5,000/1 to win the Premier League. With four games remaining, they stand on the edge of history. The season would make stars of Jamie Vardy and Riyad Mahrez. In November, Vardy broke Ruud van Nistelrooy’s record by scoring in eleven consecutive Premier League games. Mahrez’s goals and assists, including magnificent solo goals against ChelseaandManchester City, made him favourite to win the PFA Footballer of the Year award. If Arsenal’s unbeaten season in 2003/04 saw their team dubbed the Invincibles, then Leicester’s exploits in 2015/16 have made them The Unbelievables. This is the story of their season as seen through the eyes of the supporters who have followed them up and down the country with an increasing sense of wonder.