The Rise and Fall of Leicester City - Part 1

27:20Yeah, that just kicked the start of our season again. So yeah, it was a great game. I know what you mean in terms of the critics because people were believing at some stage this will fall away for Leicester. They won't be able to continue this all the way through the season. And so that brief period of what, three games or so, it felt as though, well, this is it. This is the season starting to go away. So did January feel, Rob, like it was answering that kind of criticism of showing that this was sustainable? Well, I think we had doubts as well. We've not been in a position before where we've been in a position where we're top and then we dropped a few points and people all of a sudden start to question us.

27:58So I was certainly unsure as well. But I think the way we won the game, you know, you can't be the 1-0 away, smash and grab, you know, like we're literally sitting in a changing room going, how the hell did we get away with that? But that's the beauty of the sport. And I think the way we won it almost made it more important rather than just winning it. I know it's a win, it's a win, but we were sitting there, literally just couldn't believe it. And that just built the spirit even more and we started building momentum again. I always remember, Wes, that Claudio Ranieri kept coming out and talking about 40 points, 40 points.

28:30Everybody else was saying, can Leicester City win the league? Can Leicester City qualify for the Champions League? Can they qualify for Europe somehow? And Claudio just kept saying, 40 points, 40 points. Was that the same message that you were getting in the dressing room or was that just for us in the media? I think Claudio did great there, you know, with kind of keeping that pressure off the boys. Obviously, the season before, we just avoided relegation. So even though he was, you know, flying in the Premier League that season, 15-16, everyone wanted, well, all the media, the news, wanted that kind of punchline headline, you know, what can you do this season?

29:04Can you win the league? And the message was from Claudio, no, we're just going to try and get to 40 points, you know. That's the big target. And obviously in-house, you know, We were working hard. We were just trying to focus on maintaining what we were doing and keeping our heads straight, I'd say, and not getting carried away with the outside noise a little bit. So, yeah, it wasn't that message exactly inside the dressing room. But at the same time, we knew the task. We knew that, you know, obviously things can change very quickly in football. But let's just keep doing what we're doing. And I think Claudia did fantastic with kind of keeping that pressure off us.

29:39He knew exactly how to feed the media or us a line. He's talking about, you know, dilly ding, dilly dong, the RAF with Mahrez and Vardy, the pizzas. He knew exactly what he was doing. And we're grateful for it because it makes headlines. It makes intros. It's great. But it just allowed us to talk about that and the headlines and Claudio rather than you guys. Nick what I was going to ask you about was January transfer window because we've seen it before with clubs who maybe their ambitions change as the early season progresses and they get to January and think do you know what we could do with a few more players and yet that's not quite Leicester's approach they did bring in Damari Gray but it was pretty quiet Yeah, they were looking at Damari Gray in the summer.

30:25They were close to getting him in the summer. I think he opted to stay at Birmingham at the time. And then they managed to get him in the January. But it's difficult. It's not just like, OK, we need X player. But when the guys have got such a cohesive and strong unit, you need to make sure you bring in the right personality. You can have all the best players in the world. But if they don't gel, if they don't like each other, if they don't get on, if they argue, if it's a bad atmosphere, you're not going to get results. you're not going to get performances. So if you bring in somebody to upset the apple cart, I mean, we've seen it before.

30:57I'm not saying necessarily bad character, but Newcastle, when they were going for the title, they bring in Tino Espria all those years ago and things seem to go a little bit awry because maybe they changed the tactics a little bit. So keeping the status quo is the best thing for it. It was the best thing for you guys at the time. Yeah, and I think that's credit to, you know, the recruitment and Walsh who was on earlier. You know, they don't just look for obviously good talent or talent that got the potential to become even better. I think the mentality of the players and the character of the players plays a big, important part in their recruitment strategy.

31:31And obviously, bringing players in, it takes a lot of time to kind of look into that, speak to people, get character references. And I think that was special. That was what was special about Leicester and the recruitment, especially in that period.

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33:13Five Live Sports.

33:21This is the Football Daily Podcast with Kelly Kitts. The next big test came at the start of February. A three-game run of Liverpool at home, then Manchester City and Arsenal away. And Claudio Ranieri promised the team... Now, hang on, is this right, Wes? He promised the team a week off if you got three wins from three in that period. Yeah, it's funny. I was doing something with Danny Simpson and he kind of brought up... Do you remember him saying, you know, if we get the results we want over that period, we're going to get the week off? And I was like, I can't. I can't remember. Everything seemed a bit of a blur, especially through that period.

34:00Because I know there was those big games. I was like, right, we need to perform. We need to come away with, you know, some good points out of these games. Massive games. And listen, the boys always love a week off incentive. So that's always goes down very well. And then, of course, there were the two goals from Jamie Vardy in the Liverpool match. Then it was Manchester City. The hero on the day, the now goal-scoring machine, that is Robert Hoof. Goal-scoring machine. Two goals in the 3-1 win there. Yeah, yeah. Probably those three games, probably the best we played. I thought Liverpool were outstanding.

34:39Took it into the City game. and again it was one of those surreal moments where we looked across each other to West and we threw it up with 10 minutes to go. We didn't think we could make that. But it was a perfect game for us and that was probably our best performance of the season. And by 3-1, 3-1 and yeah, we pushed on and pushed on. Did that feel like the moment where everything changed? I mean, you talked a little bit about players hadn't been in that situation before and there maybe wasn't, not necessarily doubt, but just not knowing what would come next. Was that a moment that you think that feeling changed?

35:18For me personally, it didn't know. I know, Wes, you mentioned before it was for you. Not to be negative, but football, so many things can happen so quickly. Momentum can shift. You can get a player sent off who's not available. These kind of things. I always had that in the back of my head going, we can't mess this up now. The fear of missing out motivated me more than the excitement because I think there's a stat that if you were first at Christmas, you know, the team normally wins the Premier League and that would have been us if we didn't do it. So the fear kicked me on. But for me to really believe we could do it, I had to wait another couple of games before.

35:54Because I know the next loss is always around the corner. So it's the one thing that kept me on my toes. Yeah, did you still maintain that belief that you got from those two games through the defeat at Arsenal and that late winner, the manner of that defeat the late winner from Danny Welbeck Obviously great result against Liverpool fantastic performance and that definitely put us on a high went into the Man City game and I think a lot of people put that as a period of three games like this is going to decide their season the way we performed the way we kind of went to Man City's backyard and come away with the points but obviously the three goals being 3-0 up and being ahead really hit us and I thought wow for me personally I thought we could do something special here you know and produce the impossible and that's the first time I felt like that throughout the kind of course of season and ironically we went to Arsenal and we lost you know so it kind of brought everything back down to earth a little bit but I think we definitely learned a lot from that kind of period especially that Arsenal game because remember how Arsenal kind of celebrated in the dressing room and the pictures that came out on social media and Just talk a bit more about them, Wes, in case people don't remember them.

37:11So obviously, you know, it was a big game. And to be fair, we had, what, 10 men because Danny Simpson got sent off. So, you know, I think the man of the game, the way we kind of lost it in the end with, I think, the Danny Welbeck goal late on in the game. And it was all deflated. We'd gone into the dressing room, all deflated. I remember some of the boys were on the phone and we could hear the cheers anyway. But some of the boys on the phone and we've seen pictures of the dressing room, the Arsenal dressing room. and all the guys, you know, lining up, taking that picture. They won the league, didn't they?

37:39Yeah, exactly. The way they celebrated, they thought they won the league. And I remember thinking, this is Leicester. Why they celebrated? This is a great answer. This is Leicester. Is this what it really means for them to beat Leicester? And I think that definitely, we learned a lot from kind of that period, but that day in particular, and we didn't look back after that. I was so angry after that game, just the way that they're rubbing it in. And there's always a way to win and to lose, I think, but when you have staff on the pitch telling Brady and I generally looked at it going like so angry it took me a good couple of days to go over it and obviously once you start seeing all the social media coming out ignites a bit more fire in you doesn't it could you use it Rob or did it just make you angry I did use it well it made me angry as well as that but lucky we had a week off and what we did do well in that season every time we had a setback we got back to winning straight away but yeah I used it for motivation but on the day it was just anger, frustration just the way we lost it I'm still angry now It's alright you won the league it's okay let it go and you did like you say get a week off were any of you were any of the three of you one of the players that went off to Dubai were any of you partied to Jamie Vardy feeding a tiger cub from a baby's milk bottle or anything like that I don't think I participated in that one No No All good boys who just stayed at home and just made sure they kept themselves right for the rest of the running.

39:06A couple of yoga sessions, yeah. We've got to the stage where you've been through that kind of slightly tough period. But as Rob was saying, every time there was a setback, it felt that Leicester were able to bounce back. This is 12 games to go at home to Norwich. And Leonardo Ajoa in the 89th minute got the goal. The reaction was so great. The University of Leicester had it, which was not anything to do with the football, but they just had an earthquake experiment happened to be set up and it registered 0.3 on the Richter scale in terms of the celebrations. The Leicester fans felt that so much.

39:47But then five games to go, if we jump to there, Jamie Vardy was sent off. He got a second yellow card for simulation against West Ham. And that was a two-all draw. Rob, how did that one play out, given that you were still getting over your anger from the Arsenal game a couple of months previously? Yeah, no, I mean, Vardy getting sunned off obviously was a disaster, wasn't it? But the earthquake was nuts. I remember that day the atmosphere was utterly buzzing and the supporters helped us over the line on that day. And like I said earlier, we always had players that could step up for either injured or suspended players.

40:24and Leo did a couple of massive goals for us that year, not just that one, later on in the season as well. It's great to have players, it's easy to have a stop sometimes when you're not playing but Leo certainly wasn't one of them. When he came on he always gave it his all. There was also a 4-0 win against Swansea which gave Leicester City the chance to win the league at Old Trafford but it was a one-all draw. Who got the equaliser? I like your build up there, Kelly. That was the, going into that Man United game, knowing the significance of a win, it was a massive game for us. You know, we've fought all season.

41:05We've got to this point now where it's actually in our hands. And yeah, I remember the game. I remember going down 1-0 down and thinking, right, here we go. Gone up for a wide free kick and I don't score many. So obviously to get on the end of a cross from Danny Drinkwater and to find the net was unbelievable, you know, especially a massive stadium like that. And the significance of that goal and getting a point, obviously was a point that was enough to kind of get us over the line eventually after the Chelsea Tottenham game. So that point, as you said, that Wes earned at Old Trafford meant that Leicester could win the title on the Monday night.

41:44That's if Chelsea could stop Tottenham winning. But Spurs hadn't won at Chelsea for 26 years so the whole squad as we know as has now gone down in folklore assembles at Jamie Vardy's house why Jamie Vardy's house how was it all sorted out what was the what was the planning there was it just an organic decision yeah I don't actually know how we got to his house yeah we must have just decided as a group yeah was it like guys come round mine literally like on the way out of training kind of it wasn't like a a big planned event to be honest I think I don't think Mark kind of got there at the beginning you got there afterwards is that right Mark?

42:26Yeah yeah so yeah it's kind of like a bit of a word of mouth like and was like yeah you know that sounds good let's try and let's gather around Vod obviously you know you know he's stuck with the beers and all that kind of stuff so it made sense so Spurs are going for the title themselves of course and they go 2-0 up at Stamford Bridge and it is all on Spurs at that point and then how are we feeling at half time what's the mood at jamie vardy's house when everybody's around there watching the game where's your shaking your head nah the mood wasn't good you know um so hope and so much hope and expectation before the game there's a real buzz you know going off in the house and everyone's like surely it's gonna it's gonna be it's gonna happen then obviously you know two nil down at half time we're thinking nah we're gonna have to do it ourselves you know it might not be obviously in the second half was a different story yeah if there's one team that could upset Spurs it was Chelsea so I was a bit more more positive possibly than other lads so yeah plus even had to win the game we were still five points ahead everything was still in our hands so it wouldn't have been a disaster but obviously when you get close to the line you want to get across as quickly as possible and yeah Chelsea did a massive favour that night I was at Stamford Bridge that this is not making it all about me there's a reason that I'm saying this but as soon as that first Chelsea goal went in it felt as though the momentum had completely shifted it felt as though there wasn't really a way back for Tottenham that this was going to be a game in which Chelsea got at least a point Yeah the momentum definitely shifted do you know what I mean like you could feel it you know if you watch a lot of football you can sometimes predict they're going to come back they're going to come back do you know what I mean yeah they was feeling well they was looking a little bit deflated it wasn't on the front foot as much kind of getting seconds to balls and you can see Chelsea kind of creeping more and more up the field into the Tottenham defence and you're just thinking, come on, just one more opportunity one more opportunity and I think when you've got someone like Hazard on the pitch, you've always got hope.

44:29And I played for Chelsea I know how much they hate Spurs I knew there was going to be a bit of a twist happening because the one thing I do know is that Chelsea don't want Spurs to win anything, never mind the game. So for Chelsea to ruin that for Spurs day, probably had a good night out as well, I think. We are just moments away in terms of our storytelling of Leicester City winning that Premier League title. Chelsea get the equaliser, they hold out for the rest of the game, the final whistle goes, and Leicester City are crowned champions of England. And that's it! It's finished 2-2! And we can say now, Leicester City are the Premier League champions they've won the league for the first time in their history Mark Albrighton's not even there yet when do you decide to go Mark?

45:22Yeah after so yeah I decided to watch it at home with like all my family I had friends and that over and watched it there I think maybe the week before I remember watching the Tottenham game I think it was at Stoke and it was just a complete disappointment like they I think they won 4-0 or something I thought I'm not going through through all that again really so as soon as the final whistle went all the family there it was great um and then I was within five minutes I was like right somebody dropped me to Vard's house um so uh I've jumped in so it's my mum and dad that ended up driving me over there uh I got got a call when I was on I was about halfway there, got a call.

46:06I fired saying, listen, don't come to my house. Go to the police station, the local police station. So I thought, strange. Something's gone wrong. Yeah, yeah, exactly that. So I've got there, I've got to the police station and Ben Chilwell was sat in the custody room. Obviously, Sinem, he's been told the same thing. and it turned out we needed a police escort to get from the police station to his house because of the amount of fans that were outside of his gates. And so these police cars took us in and the fans are throwing scarves, flag shirts all over the police car, banging on the police car windows.

46:48And eventually we got in and joined the party. But it was, I'd say it was probably at that time, maybe two hours after the final whistle. and it hit a bit of a lull. I think people just responding to messages and the sort of euphoria had worn off a little bit. But then within about an hour, it was back and that was it then for the next six months. I think that's a really interesting moment when any team wins a trophy. You always see that moment where it just sinks in, where all that energy that is taken to achieve suddenly just disappears temporarily. And there's just that moment of realisation.

47:33But before that, there were all the celebrations at the final whistle that Mark missed. What did he miss, Wes? Yeah, he missed out there. Obviously, the final whistle, everyone goes ballistic. You know, everyone's going crazy. Everyone's jumping on each other. I think there's some videos online of me getting dragged around the kitchen and a lot of people doing crazy stuff. I think that's why the fans gathered outside. I don't think anybody was careful about saying where you were. They wanted to join in. but no it's a good 10-15 minutes and I remember it so kind of clearly like I'm being tired thinking it's been 10-15 minutes consecutive like shouting and screaming and then everyone kind of just took a minute and I think that's when Mark kind of joined us, he's probably on a high thinking what's going on, do you know what I mean and then we took like maybe 5-10 minutes to kind of respond to messages and just take a sit down and then yeah it definitely livened up again and it kind of rebuilt up and then started going crazy again so yeah great memories great time and I think like Mark said it lasted for probably about six months there was another player who wasn't there as well Nathan Dyer who had come online from Swansea that season he was actually in hospital because he'd his wife had just given birth to their second little boy I think that's a valid reason so he was watching the game in the hospital room on the iPad as doctors and nurses and other people sort of popped their heads in to say congratulations to him, which is a bit of a surreal one for him.

48:58Yeah. Yeah. That's something they can hold over that child for the rest of its life. I miss the Premier League celebrations for that one. Because you, Rob, had been more cautious, I think, than some other players or just more aware of, as you said, the way that momentum can change so quickly. So to finally get it over the line, what did it mean to you? Yeah, the world. You know, when you work as hard as we did for the season, it was amazing. and you kind of want that moment just to happen. We missed a few opportunities, like you said, against Men U to win it there. But yeah, you're just so excited when the whistle's gone.

49:35You double-check that it actually was the final whistle. But yeah, like the lads have said, after 10-15 minutes, you calm down, you ring your family and you thank them for their efforts and their support and obviously your wife, kids, etc. Because they've been obviously part of it as well. What a moment that was. And yeah, like you said, it was just nuts for the first 10 minutes. No one knew how to celebrate. You can't teach how to celebrate, can you? So everyone just kind of just went on dancing, jumping. And yeah, a few more beers that night were drunk as well. I'll tell you who wasn't struggling to find ways to celebrate.

50:10And that was the Leicester City fans. So there were a load outside Jamie Vardy's house. And then there were celebrations, Nick, outside the King Power. And all the way into the next day. It just continued. I mean, you can imagine the world's media then continued to descend on Leicester. I remember I was outside the training ground. We could hear kind of you guys celebrating. One of my former colleagues convinced a neighbour at Beaver Drive to let him into their house so he could sort of lean out the bathroom window to try to get footage and shots of you guys celebrating. I mean, one of my best memories of that is the club didn't see, it seemed to catch the club on the hop a little bit that day.

50:49So we eventually go down to the training ground, to the stadium, and it's obviously Walter Wolfe fan. It takes us, usually it's a five minute drive, isn't it? It took us half an hour to get parked up. We go into the stadium, we're in the media room, and eventually we get a call, Cloudy will see you at the training ground. This is about five o 'clock and we've been in the city since about seven in the morning. And slowly, it's packed, the world's media is in there, and we don't want to let on that we've got the interview that everybody wants. so one by one two by two everybody just gets up and leaves very very slowly to make sure that nobody recognizes that something's going on we go back up and we go in to see Claudio in the family room at Beaver Drive you know just off just off the receptions you know no bells and whistles in the room Claudio comes in there's eight of us he gets this impromptu standing ovation you don't think about it at the time because you're in it you've got deadlines to hit you've got to do your job just like you guys have done all season and that is the man that the world wanted to speak to You've got him for 45 minutes, absolutely precious 45 minutes.

51:50That is something both personally and professionally sticks with me from that season. Those celebrations, absolutely priceless for Leicester City, unless you were one of the Leicester fans who took a gamble on winning the Premier League trophy when the odds were 5 ,000 to 1. One of them, Lynn Wyre from the Foxes Trust, joins us now. Lynn, congratulations. How much did you win? I won£10 ,000. When you decided to make the bet at the start of the season, did you think, although those just seem really long odds, it's worth a couple of quid? Or did you think, no, I really genuinely, my heart of hearts, believe that Leicester City are going to win the Premier League trophy?

52:32I always put a quid on, just for a bit of a giggle, just in case, you know, it's worth a quid in the summer holidays. But I doubled it that year because we've been playing so well the season before, you know, we'd had the great escape. And it was just an absolute pleasure watching them. There was something special really starting to play out in front of us. And I just thought if we play like this next season, yeah, let's put, you know, two quid on instead of one. Listen, last of the big spenders, Lynn. It's all good stuff. Listen, I need to ask you this and you need to tell me the answer as though the guys aren't listening.

53:08Okay. Were you ever tempted to cash out? Absolutely, yes. Christmas had a massive wobble at Christmas. I thought, here we go, this will be the Christmas dip, won't it? We'll start losing. But no, I held my nerve because we were still playing beautiful football, weren't we? And Vards was on fire. Please tell me you did something nice with the winnings. I did a few nice things with it. I did some really sensible stuff, which was paid my mortgage off early. Now, I know that sounds really dull and grown up. But you bought yourself peace of mind. Thanks to Leicester City and thank you guys on the call.

53:47I retired at 55. Yay! I was not working until I was 67 and they helped me go at 55. I loved them for that. But I also bought tickets for the Champions League games, went over to see them in Copenhagen, that sort of thing. So that was really exciting. Lynne, it's been really lovely talking to you. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you. Bye. Bye. Thank you, Lynn. Thank you to Lynn Wyeth there from the Fox's Trust, one of the people for whom that Leicester City title win was not exactly priceless. Lynn very much benefited from it at 5 ,000 to 1. Look, so much happened in the aftermath of Leicester City's Premier League title win.

54:28Not only the country, but the world, Nick, was captivated by the story of Leicester City. Just tell us about some of the knock-on effects, some of the things that happened as a result, some of the ways in which it was celebrated. I mean, even if you go back during the season and you've got the butchers who make the Claudio Ranieri sausage. I love that. That's the first one. That's the one that sticks out. They came into a press conference and presented Claudio with this plate of sausages, which he didn't eat at the time. I think he said there was too much garlic in it. But, you know, he declares himself the sausage man rather than the tinker man.

55:08even go look at the Leicester fans we haven't mentioned you had Jamie Vardy doppelganger on the bus at one point oh yeah as well I'm not by that and it just Leicester were on the map how they managed to do this the amount of media that were in the King Power the club put champagne on and everything like that Claudio comes in and toasts everybody I think the club were really really good at just being able to do it properly. Lynne did mention Champions League football and going to watch Leicester in the Champions League and obviously you guys know way before you've won the league title that you are going to be playing Champions League football the next season.

55:51Mark, Wes and Rob have had their moments in terms of the significant goals that they scored throughout that title winning campaign but neither of them scored the first ever Champions League goal for Leicester City. No, no, this is my moment to shine. Yeah, Yeah, no, it was obviously going into that first game. It was, I don't know, a bit surreal. Just not knowing sort of where we was going to be, if we were going to be at the level. It was going into the unknown a little bit away at Bruges. I compare it to like the first day of a new season and you sort of compare where you are in terms of fitness with the opposition.

56:29And that's how I found it in that first Champions League game. But we just got off to the best start and just went from strength to strength and never really looked back in that campaign then. Momentum took us through and we were just so confident. And I think the other thing as well, we was just enjoying every second of it. We didn't take it for granted. We knew that this weren't going to happen every season, so to enjoy it then and that's what we was doing, whether it was the training at the stadium the night before or just different things. different ways in which you prepare for Champions League games, we just enjoyed every second of it.

57:10That's it for part one. In the next episode of the Football Daily, we'll look at what happened after Leicester's title win.

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