It’s July 2011. The summer after I had returned from four
months of travelling in The Americas, aged 22, I’m unsure of my next steps but
certain they won’t be nearly as adventurous as those taken during the preceding
four months. I create a list.
To this day, on my computer, resides that list. Titled ’50
things to do before I die’ - and probably an attempt to reassure myself that I
wasn’t about to embark to on a monotonous grind until retirement - I remember
little about what prompted me to put that list together but vividly actually
doing so.
I never made it to 50 things and to this day the list stands
untouched at 29. Somewhere amongst the 29 reads ‘see Leicester City win the FA
Cup’. Some things have been accomplished, others retain that aspect of ‘to do’
about them. Including that elusive FA Cup.
With fresh perspective, that FA Cup doesn’t seem so
important right now. Because on Sunday afternoon Leicester City have the chance
to win The Premier League at Old Trafford in a tale that for me - and almost
every other Leicester City fan - seemed so wildly incomprehensible that it was
never even close to contemplation. Let alone bucket lists.
The clichés have been done to death. A fairytale, a great
story, a miracle. But with any tale there’s a structure. A rhyme and reason. An
element of expectation, good or bad.
Nobody saw this coming.
Being a Leicester City fan hasn’t always been easy. Put
together a list of things that can happen to a football club and Leicester City
have been through most in the last 20 years; promotions, relegations,
administration, a ground move, cup wins, takeovers, La Manga sex scandals,
play-off heartbreaks, the greatest of great escapes and a string of managers.
Boring it certainly is not.
This is not intended to be a sob story. More an explanation
of why an explanation does not come easy. Because in the past few weeks and
months people have asked me about what could be about to happen (the pessimist
in me still can’t bring myself to say it will) and often I’ve not entertained
the question. I’ll shake my head in disbelief and say ‘crazy’ or puff my cheeks
and exclaim ‘insane’. I do this because this has a meaning rooted far deeper than
something I’m able to encapsulate amidst small talk.
I’ve followed Leicester City since 1997. If I added up the
money I have spent on doing so it would probably be the biggest expenditure in
my life alongside food and drink. If I added up the time that I have spent
watching Leicester it would probably equate to more than that which I have
spent in the company of people I consider good friends. If I could summon up
the energy I have put into watching Leicester City over the years into one
collective effort then I single-handedly could achieve something unknown to man.
The truth is that Leicester City is part of my identity. Following
them has taken me to the deepest darkest corners of England but simultaneously
to the top of the world.
I will never forget walking away from Vicarage Road after that Deeney moment as ‘Yellow’ by
Colplay blared out over the tannoy and Watford fans celebrated on the pitch – I
barely spoke on the journey home. Standing in disbelief in Stoke as time ebbed
away and relegation to the lowest point in the club’s entire history was
confirmed. Just knowing, as Kermorgant stepped up on a cold Tuesday play-off
semi-final night in Cardiff, that another entry on the list – seeing Leicester
play at the new Wembley – would have to wait a little longer. Filling out a
membership form to join a Supporters’ Trust in order to try and help save the
club from extinction and dropping coins in a bucket to the same effect. Weaving
through hordes of taunting Wolves supporters having just lost a crucial relegation
six-pointer where we were 3-0 up at half time only to go on to lose 4-3.
Manchester United fans counting down the time that we had left in The Premier
League as the minutes on the old scoreboard at Filbert Street ticked by and
(what we thought were) our halcyon days were ending. The numerous days or
evenings where I sat in a car for hours on end only to see guys who were paid
more in a month than I earn in a year fail to show even a hint of caring half
as much as I did.
They say that the bad times make the good ones better but
you don’t embark on a lifetime supporting Leicester City in expectation of the
reward of those good times. The victory and the glory is only ever secondary.
It’s mad, but Leicester City can change my mood. They can
ruin an otherwise good day and brighten an otherwise sullen one. People who do
not follow a football team often fail to understand that hold football has on
people. Challenge them to spend so much time and effort on something and
they’ll find it impossible not to care too. I’ve tried, in times of footballing
despair, to vow that I’ll never again care about it so much.
But then it gets me. Years pass and once more; knots in the
stomach, a shaking hand, a resting heart beat anything but restful. Leicester
City can affect me physically.
Why? Because Leicester is my city. This is my cause.
Football is not a matter of life and death but by the very same measure it’s
more than just a game. Football
clubs are rooted in communities, passed through bloodlines and markers in
otherwise ordinary lives. I wouldn’t change any of those moments
because, throughout it all, the one
constant in every time good or bad? People who feel exactly the same, stood
next to me sharing in it all. My dad, stood next to me sharing in it all.
Leicester City stand on the brink of sporting greatness.
They could be about to achieve something that will see me die a happy Leicester
City fan at a stage of life where I hope I have decades more to live. If we win
The Premier League, what happens from here matters not. Those who do not
support Leicester City are misguided with the misconception that a return to
what we know as normality is the worst that it can get.
The Twitter war of words, the ‘banter’, the pundits.
Everyone wants a piece of this Leicester City story. In a world where hashtags
are used to quickly summarise meaning of something, for this story there are
none that fit. This is a story with a global appeal, but it is not one with
global meaning.
As Leicester City fans, this is our experience and attached
to it is our meaning. It’s the dream that they never would have marketed to us
because no Leicester City fan would ever have bought it. It’s real and it’s
magical. But not for the 35 games that have gone before, for the lifetimes that
have gone before.
We say we’re Leicester til we die. Make us immortal, lads.
