There are times, even now, that it still gets me. On a quiet train journey home, along the early-morning walk to work or just lying in bed at night trying to fall asleep. ‘Wow’.
The 2016 Leicester City story will live within me until the grave.
For Leicester City fans, 2016 is a year to bid a fond farewell to but also one to be harked back to at will - a landmark, pinnacle, watershed year. The beauty of reminiscence is in the snapshots, those freeze-frame moments and memories which, together, paint a perfect picture and tell the most unlikely of stories.
And from 2016, there are plenty...
Standing aghast in the away end at The Etihad in Manchester on a rainy February afternoon where the prevailing emotion to greet Robert Huth’s bullet header putting us 3-0 up was one of shock rather than joy. That palpable time-slowing sensation that was a by-product of 3,000 people simultaneously holding their heads and wondering: “what the fuck is happening?”. Reverberations being transmitted nation-wide in tandem with the splendour of Mahrez’s dancing feet.
So late in the day when Leonardo slid in to bundle a ball over a white line of such significance that it caused an earthquake. A stadium erupted and the few minutes that were left of that match against Norwich City were played out to a deafening crescendo: “he scores goals so that’s alright with me”.
Being politely ushered out of Selhurst Park a full 15 minutes after the final whistle had blown when one chant, one declaration, had refused to subside: “We’re gonna win the league, we know you won’t believe us”. The point at which the irony in that very notion was swept away and a collective belief which corresponded with that of those eleven players on that pitch resided in its place. An assertion now, not speculation. A set of supporters who had seen the sublime to the ridiculous enough times to know that what was happening right then was both in equal measure.
At Vicarage Road when Mahrez illuminated an away end anxiously waiting in the dark for that spark, for that push along the tunnel at the end of which a heavenly light awaited. Everything about Leicester was vintage that night; the defensive resilience, the industrious midfield and the star dust on top. At the scene of our lowest low, we marched on towards our highest high with a Riyad rocket.
When Claudio’s tears up in Sunderland epitomised the passion, the absurdity of the situation and the enchanting and encapsulating nature of this fairytale we were living through. Vardy was back to his record-breaking clinical best and up in the gods we danced a victory dance, man and woman, old and young. Down in the doldrums, they clapped our players off their home turf for the second season in a row. We had become the nation’s second team.
Only once in that run in did it feel like the weight of the world was not behind us but instead on our shoulders. Jon Moss on a one-man mission to spoil the party sent us through the full range of emotions. From pure rage to pure ecstasy in minutes as Leonardo showed mighty great balls of steel to tuck away the last minute penalty. “He scores goals so that’s alright with me”.
Following Leicester in 2016 was a novel experience. The well-wishers and the “we hope you do it”s on the road, the throngs of international press that scrambled for fan interviews outside stadiums and the hordes of Italians who made a pilgrimage to our city to share in the success of their countryman Ranieri.
And, talking of Italians, Bocelli… Beautiful. Brilliant. Bocelli.
These memories are unique in that they were shared internationally with the watching world but simultaneously so personal. I would not expect for anyone who is not a football fan to ever understand that. Since when were they at the centre of a sporting story that captured the imagination of the world? When did they experience, first-hand, a whole city united in joyous celebration? When did they, week-by-week, see an event unfold before their very eyes that was considered ten times less likely than Elvis being found alive?
They say that there are things which supposedly made 2016 a bad year; death, division and decline. All the antithesis of the Leicester City story; the team immortal, the city together and the football club ascending.
They also say that all good things must come to an end, and so it may prove. Goals may never mean as much as they did before, that stadium might never shake so vigorously with delight as it has done prior and maybe emotions will never again be stirred as totally as experienced in those perfect moments. So even if alongside Bowie, Prince, Wogan and Ali something has died, the memories will endure forever more.
And later in the year, the walk down Wembley Way. The Wednesday nights under the lights with that spine-tingling Champions League anthem and the raucous roar that followed it against Porto. The accolades and awards and the books and films to follow. The descent back down to earth and a return to normality which only serves to heighten the magic of those moments before.
They are the memories that have me misty-eyed. The pictures in my mind to which I will cling. The things that made 2016 great.
May auld acquaintance never be forgot.
