SOUL SURMISE

WHY I'D RATHER LOSE WITH PEP THAN WIN WITH JOSE - Not Quite Gloating At City's Derby Win

I never enjoy the Manchester derby. Oh, of course it is the most important fixture of the season but there is that knot in the stomach, for all 90 or 99 minutes. Even those historic 5-1 and 6-1 wins, it was only deep into injury time when I could relax and feel we were safe!

No, as Colin Sinclair’s book was titled, Manchester United Ruined My Life. There was even a period a few years back when they would purposely leave it until injury time BUT in Fergie time they would then break our hearts. Time after time. Remember Michael Owen. Or Rooney’s amazing volley! Ouch!

Even yesterday with the pundits suggesting we were the better team, when we were coming off 13 Premiership wins in a row, I was still nervous that United would break my heart, yet again. Indeed, I preferred playing United when we were rubbish and fighting relegation. In those days we had nothing to lose. We had no expectations of beating the dominant team in Europe. A win was so joyous and I am glad to say that there were one or two!

Yesterday we were 8 points clear at the top of the league. We had lots to lose. A record 14 game winning streak as well as that healthy gap in points. United would love beating us in the same way we loved beating them back in the day.

United came into the game having shown some real form. Those first twenty minutes against Arsenal were very impressive. Our last few games had been a struggle to win. Paul Pogba suspension, due to a sending off against Arsenal, was a plus point for sure. It would be like us without De Bruyne.

I doubt that since Busby verses Mercer has there ever been such a head to head in mangers as Jose and Pep. Manchester is now divided in two on managerial approaches. Jose Mourinho has been an incredibly successful manager. Winning three Premierships with Chelsea says he knows the English game. Pep Guardiola has been successful too but many are unconvinced that he can do his thing in England.

As I look at these two mangers I see two very different approaches. Pep is a developer of players. I don’t just mean young players. De Bruyne, Sterling, Stones, Otimendi and Aguero are improved players over the last 18 months under Pep. He has a way of playing and he needs the players who can play his ambitious system, shaped when he was influenced playing under Johan Cruyff.

Jose is a whole different kind of manager. He is pragmatic. He is a tactician. He looks at the players he has at his disposal and, maybe even just as much, at the team he is playing and is a genius at getting a result. His personality is a little eccentric and the kind of quirk that doesn’t care what others think. 

Which is why I am glad that Pep not Jose is City’s manager. Yesterday Jose’s tactics embarrassed a club that deserves better. As City fans chanted their new song “Park the bus”, United did. At home against the noisy neighbours they had only 35% of the possession. Manchester United for goodness sake. They looked nervous and frightened. Manchester United for goodness sake. Jose has got away with his pragmatism for too many years because he has won. Yesterday he didn’t. I cannot see United fans being patient when it is the noisy neighbours beating them with poetic free flowing football. Having said that that is the very challenge Jose likes. It’s a big one but if anyone…

Now, here’s the thing. Right up until the referee blew the whistle yesterday, United were in the game. As at the end of the first half, when outplayed and one down going into injury time, a quick break and defensive mistake and Rashford could have finished beautifully again. City just couldn’t get that third goal and Ederson made a crucial double save that could have made it 2-2. 

Jose’s pragmatism almost matched Pep’s poetry… but it didn’t. United’s reputation is taking a mauling in today’s press. Pre match mind games did not effect Pep or City. Ironically it was a United player Herrera who was booked for diving! The after match perpetual blaming of referees and the later rumours of Jose’s confrontation outside the City dressing room hasn’t helped. Pep is not the gentleman that Pellegrini was but I would rather lose with Pep than win with Jose.

As for the Premiership it is far from over. City caught United in 2012 and we were 8 points behind at Easter. It’s not even Christmas. If City get injuries to crucial players and United, Chelsea, Liverpool, Spurs or Arsenal go on a 14 game winning streak… So, as Kevin De Bruyne said after the game, “I would rather be 11 points ahead than 11 points behind.” There are 22 games left. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if City won them all playing football that thrills us all! Just saying! 

MANCHESTER CITY - A LONG WAY TO GO

After the near forty years of utter misery supporting Manchester City, surely my friends will allow me a day in the sun. Paris St Germain are probably the only team in the world that would dare suggest that they are better just now! It’s a long way from 1999 and away days at Macclesfield Town, trailing around mid table, two Divisions down, for a part of the season while our neighbours won the Treble!

It was at a wedding a couple of years ago, speaking to a man who knows nothing about football, when I realised that the future, that we are already experiencing now was assured. My friend is working in the middle east seeing through a University hospital project. When he told me that they did not know the word failure and invested money until they succeeded I smiled. I knew then that City would have Pep Guardiola and silverware was pretty much guaranteed.

However, with all the winning streaks and free flowing football, City are far from completing the project. The project is to be one of the best teams in the world, challenging for silverware and selling shirts across the world. The Chairman admitted a few weeks ago that there is a long way to go. He is right. I have been monitoring it on my last three summer trips to Uganda. 

What have mission trips to Uganda to do with football, you might ask? Well, it is the football shirts. There is an abundance of soccer shirts across Uganda. Arsenal are the most popular. Apparently that goes back to the invincible team of 2003-04 that had African players Kanu and Toure in the squad. Anyway, in 2015 there were a decent amount of City shirts. This last summer, no improvement and if anything not so many. 

To become a global force you need to be continually winning trophies. A League Cup is not a good enough return over the last two years for a team with ambitions to be world contenders. After their Premiership successes of 2012 and 2014 City have been very much underachievers. On paper it is a travesty that they haven’t won the Premiership since 2014. It is time to put that right.

So the team is getting there. I fancy that when Pep puts his final touches to the squad next summer that City will be near invincible over the next few years. That sounds frightening considering that they have just gone 18 wins in a row in all competitions. I just do not think Pep has finished his build. 

And even this season… City who are good at writing cheques need to, in May, cash the cheque of this early season promise. Winter is coming. It could be Baltic! There is a long way to go! Those of us who have been fans for decades are all too aware of our teams's ability to Manchester City it! Failure from the jaws of victory. Too many times! I have been wondering which I would prefer; Jose pragmatic boredom week after week with scrappy 1-0 wins for a moment's joy as the trophy is lifted in May or the weekly ecstasy of beautiful Cruyffian football for a moment of deep disappointment at the finish line! Please, no! Pep needs to make sure that the best squad on paper has the best points tally at season’s end. 

It is is urgent to stop the slide in Ugandan shirt sales! It is vital if the club are to achieve the success that Sheikh Mansour has invested in. There's a long way to go. The going needs to start now! No pressure Pep!

SURMISING THE HEROICS AND HEARTACHE OF THE GAWA...

Has there ever been a more unsatisfactory winning team in a World Cup Play Off Qualifier than Switzerland? Tonight we did everything but score, even getting a header cleared off the line in the last minute. Switzerland were poor, panicking and in the end almost embarrassingly relieved. 

It all, of course, means that that awful penalty decision makes it feel unjust as well. Extra time at 0-0 over both legs and who knows, a last gasp McAuley header or a McGovern block out in a penalty shoot out. All lost when a referee has a bad angle and decides to make a big call.

All in all, this was a heroic performance, in a heroic campaign, in a heroic tenure for Michael O’Neill as manager. Northern Ireland have simply fought above their weight for at least five years. O’Neill’s achievements recognised after Euro 16 should never be forgotten. Qualifying for Russia 18 would have made that certain. Walking round Windsor Park museum this week I hope his place in that history of local football has a centre stage. He has been simply magnificent.

In the end though we have been an imbalanced team for some time. If we had had four forward players as cool, confident and classy tonight as our back four of Hughes, Evans, McAuley and Brunt then we would have stuffed Switzerland. Steven Davis has been the ultimate class act in recent years but oh for a Healy up front. Our strikers have done great and I am taking nothing away from their contribution to the heroics but that goal out of nothing was always an ask slightly too big.

It would seem likely that this is the end of the road for a dynasty. We have been the oldest team in this qualifying campaign and Hughes, McAuley and Brunt will hardly make 4 more years. Aaron might struggle to make the end of the season. Which makes his 90 minutes tonight another performance was above the ordinary. It will now take time to rebuild but the foundations O’Neill had for this team were firm and sure. The next few years do not look so rich in Premiership talent.

I fear Michael O’Neill will see this as a natural time to go. He has proven he is a good football manager and I would hope might manage at a top level. Now is his time to work out where. For our wee country it might be a while before we get this close again. This was a once in a generation opportunity. Which makes it all the more frustrating, unjust and heartbreaking. We should be no less proud, all the same!

SHOULD LUKAKU HAVE CELEBRATED IN FRONT OF THE EVERYONE FANS? ABSOLUTELY!

Was Romelu Lukaku right to celebrate his goal in front of the Everton fans on Sunday? I think he was - absolutely!

After scoring Lukaku turned away and held his hands to his ears to hear the Everton fans’ silence. For me, the gesture was not rude or disrespectful and should in no way have caused a bad disturbance from the Everton fans. 

When Emmanuel Adebayor scored for Manchester City against Arsenal and ran the entire length of the field to celebrate in front of the Arsenal fans it was a little bit out of order but for me Lukaku’s gesture was part of an ongoing conversation throughout the game between fans and player. 

I understand players who do not celebrate when they score against their old club. I am thinking of Frank Lampard with that big goal for City against Chelsea a couple of years ago. That too was about a relationship between Lampard and Chelsea fans. The difference went both ways. Chelsea’s fans respecting Lampard as a club legend would not be jeering a Lampard miss, so Lampard in return respects them and the years of love they had given him.

I think such relationships like Lampard’s with the Chelsea fans is rare and only comes with long years of service and success.

Lukaku’s relationship with Everton is different. I hope he gets enough respect that he will not be booed when he runs out at Goodison Park later in the season. However, a bit of banter is understandable. If Lukaku hits a free kick into Row Z then a wee jeer is obvious. If he then scores he should be a allowed to acknowledge the previous banter.

I think that though Lukaku changed direction as he arced away after his goal in order to send the gesture to Everton fans he quickly focused on his team mates and new fans. It should not have been caused any disruption among the Everton fans. They should have taken it as part of the banter. A message that needs to be sent to football fans is that if you can dole it out, you should take the idd wee gesture back.   

HAVE GOLF CADDIES TOO MUCH INFLUENCE?

It might be just me but I have been noticing golf caddies a little more, just recently. Obviously there is the Rory McIlroy's situation. PJ finally went his own way and Rory brought his old pal Harry Diamond in to carry his new Taylor Mades in his final Major of the year. Sadly it didn’t sparkle (ouch!). That PJ had made £8million pounds from his nine years with Rory seemed to be a reasonable return on his investment. Let us not feel too sorry for him.

Just about a month previous Phil Mickelson had split wth his caddie of 25 years. Was it a mutual decision? Who knows but one can only imagine what Bones earned in two and half decades carrying the bag of a five time major winner!

The other caddie to cross my radar was Rickie Elliott. Ricky is from Northern Ireland and caddied for Bruce Koepka when he won the US Open in June. The press speculated that the Portrush man won $200,000 that week. Probably after Rory he’ll be Northern Ireland’s best paid sportsman this year! 

Caddies eh!

Then this weekend at the Solheim Cup my surmising turned a little more serious. America’s Lexi Thompson’s caddie is a Scot called Alex McAlpine, a former professional player himself. As I watched how McAlpine helped Thompson I wondered, for the first time in my 45 years of following the sport, if the influence of caddies should be reconsidered by the golfing authorities.

McAlpine seemed to give Thompson all the lines on every shot but particularly on all of her putts. I think it was Laura Davies who said on commentary how this was a weakness of Thompson’s game and how much she depends on McAlpine. Thompson at times looked like a robot. McAlpine did all the thinking, told her what to do and Thompson’s gift was then following through on the advice. It seemed a little too much interference though. 

Which got me surmising. Is golf a level playing field? Do caddies give players significant advantage? If caddies have become coaches psychologists and crucial contributors to the outcome then should golf being recognised as a “doubles” events? Is golf comfortable with that? Or should caddies be just what they are, bag carriers? Then we would know the best player. They would all be on their own with no one to cover their weaknesses. They might then be cheaper too! 

Just surmising!

I THOUGHT OF GIVING UP FOOTBALL - BUT... IT IS MY UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE

It is just great to have the Premiership season started again, though Manchester United look a little bit strong for my liking! Without a World Cup or European Championship, the soccer less summer seemed to go on for far too long. 

As it all gets going again, my mind has been drawn back to a Sunday afternoon in April when I closed my eyes, gritted my teeth, turned up the stereo and tried to give up being a football fan! For a good five minutes it all seemed like a good idea. I could do it. Lots of my friends have no interest. 

What had caused this mad rush of blood to my head?! Well, my beloved Manchester City had just been destroying Arsenal for 45 minutes in the FA Cup Semi Final at Wembley. They should have been 6 up at half time in chances missed, did score a perfectly good goal and the score was still goalless. At that stage you know that it is not City’s day. Indeed, I had left when after a late equaliser, Arsenal went ahead in Extra Time and I knew… I could miss the rest  of that match and soccer itself for ever after!

It was deep psychological hurt. A sense of real injustice. One up at half time and we were in the FA Cup Final. A bad lines man’s decision about the ball behind out of play, when it wasn’t, and my wee heart was in short term trauma. Too easily for a 55 year old man I hear you say but it is that ridiculous impact on my life that had me trying to give the whole thing up. Football fans invest a lot of emotion in their team. With such investment, justice is the least we deserve.

This however is not a blog about refereeing technology. It is about why I could not let go of the beautiful game. So why not? Why did I decide to get up after the inevitable final score at Wembley? 

Well, the first thing is obviously the near impossibility of it all. As Rod Stewart put it in the sleeve notes of his last album, “the two things you cannot change in life are your mother and your football team.” Soccer is an addiction. You can hear the kind of money being thrown around. Neymar’s transfer to Paris St Germain for £200m and Manchester City paying the same for a new defence seems utterly obscene if you have spent some off your summer in Uganda. BUT… the darn game gets into your blood before you are old enough. A transfusion is yet to have been found!  

As I left the room in April though I had decided I was sticking with it for a more positive reason. Football is a universal language that I have used across the world. 

It all started one night in 1990 in Shanghai. Walking the streets looking for a KFC we bumped into a Chinese chap wanting to learn English. He has been teaching himself through BBC World Service and he started enthusiastically talking about Packie Bonner’s penalty save in the recent World Cup. It was humorous but taught me something about this game. Thousands of miles from home it is a connector. 

Arriving in South Africa a decade later some of the first conversations we had on the Khayelitsha township was about a soccer team; the Kaiser Chiefs. Indeed it seemed almost everyone, male or female, old or young wore Chiefs shirts. The rest supported the Orlando Pirates. After discovering that the local team Cape Town Ajax were considered Dutch and therefore white, so no fans on black townships supported them, I became an ardent Pirates fan. The Chiefs seemed a little too Man United!

For the next decade I engaged with black South Africans through Orlando Pirates shirts and hand signals. I wore the shirt on the townships as much as the odour allowed. People would stop for a chat, in amazement that a white was a Pirates fan. In moments when I felt a little insecure I’d lift my sweat shirt to reveal my Pirates’ top and tensions turned to a laugh and African handshake. At every petrol station I asked what team the attendant supported and told them I never tipped Chiefs! 

Arriving in Uganda in 2015 it was English clubs that had me conversing. Arsenal and not Manchester United surprisingly rules in Uganda. At the school we partner with I took the name Ya Ya after City’s African player Ya Ya Toure. Immediately Gilbert was Ozil and Norman was Suarez. Two year later we all still are and the kids have a few Ya Ya chaats as I walk across the playground.

In a tricky situation on the wrong side of town, Jasmine and I found ourselves a little isolated. Looking down at a few tough looking guys, sitting watching us, I spotted a bicycle in the middle of them with a  Chelsea sticker and started some banter. All fear and tension immediately evaporated and we left with them laughing at the Manchester City supporting muzungu! 

Football frustrates me and angers me and with all the money too often lets me down but it was my best geography teacher as a child because I know where towns and cities and countries are by football teams. If your town ever made the FA Cup First Round I’ll know what part of England you are from! Most of all though it is a universal language that has given me inroads to connections around the world. So here’s for another season of painfully unjust afternoons like that one last April. Give it up? Don’t be daft!

STOCKI SURMISES THE 2016-17 PREMIERSHIP SEASON

So it is Monday and the dust has settled on another Premiership season. Pablo Zabaleta  and John Terry's tears have dried and the In-Out door has begun as David Moyes leaves Sunderland! The boring days of a long summer without a big International tounrmanet has begun. I hate having no Fantasy League so much that I play the MLS version!

Chelsea were worthy winners. Just. Their consistency across the season makes last year's blip even more mysterious! Personally, I think Pochettino’s Spurs were the team of the season. Ali and Eriksen were creative geniuses and with Harry Kane winning another Golden Boot! Wow!

Arsenal fans are getting much grief this morning for finishing outside the Champions League places but credit where it is due, it is the first time they haven’t been in the top 4 in 20 years. Respect! 

Liverpool will be delighted with their Champions League place. Man. United however seem further off the pace than ever. A Europa League trophy this week might save Jose’s season but this is not where they were expecting to be 4 years after Sir Alex. Dull and defensive with the Mourinho scowl! 

My beloved Manchester City? Well, this was even more disappointing than last season. 2015-16 was the best opportunity City will ever have, with the mystery of Chelsea’s blip and the other major teams not quite put together yet. Leicester won it for goodness sake!

2016-17 we had finally got the manager we had sought for a long time; Pep Guardiola. In my opinion, even with a leaky defence, we had the best squad in the league. That we were depending on a win against Watford on the last day of the season to sneak a Champions League place and without a trophy in the sideboard was a big fail. Pep, the jury went out when you shipped Joe Hart to Italy and brought in a clown called Bravo and it is very much still out!

To be fair the season ended with City in better form though their last few opponents were already on a Spanish beach with their seasons over. Pep has little need to add to the front seven players but defensively City were vulnerable on every break. The legendary Vincent Kompany secured things up when he eventually returned from injury but full backs are urgently needed and only time will tell if John Stones and Kompany can form a partnership that can win the title. Another centre half please!

If we can keep Aguero then the attacking end needs no additions. Leroy Sane took time to find this feet but when he did he was devastating. Raheem Sterling was a revelation early on if his form dipped late in the season. Kevin De Bruyne had a blip mid season but his class is unquestionable. David Silva is still a magician. Jesus and Aguero are the best there is! Let us not forget İlkay Gündoğan who sone bright until his injury.

So, bring on August! The 2017-18 Premiership should be the most competitive league in the history of world soccer. When you see how easy the top two teams in Germany, Spain and Italy have you are glad to be following the English game. 

If Jose can sort something out and make United strong again then we are in the era of the big BIG SIX. I imagine that all six will strengthen. The other leveller will be that all six are in Europe. There can be no questions that Liverpool and Chelsea both benefitted from not being in Europe. It is now three years since a team who was in Europe won the title! Bournemouth anyone?! Two teams with big players and managers will miss out on the Champions League. Pressure!

STANDING IN ARNOLD PALMER'S SPACE... Remembering A Legend

Arnold Palmer. Muirfield 1973. I remember standing in his space. It is what I did as an 11 year old. I was an autograph hunter. You found your way to your heroes and then stood in front of them with your autograph book primed. Sometimes you said, “Mr Palmer can I have your autograph please.” Other times you were in packs and whoever just signed the next one of a line of you, or more likely a scrum.

You didn’t always get. That same day I first got Palmer’s, Jack Nicklaus had refused, saying he didn’t sign during the round. Fair enough. I got his a few years later. Another time Peter Thomson, who wasn’t even playing at the time refused, making some snide comment to whoever was with him, that he wasn’t anybody. Well before it he was a five times Open Champion but he was right, after cold blooded dismissal of a teenage boy he was an absolute nobody from then on!

Palmer signed. My dad was as excited as me. Palmer was the King of golf. Oh Nicklaus had more majors but Palmer had revolutionised the sport. He has made it popular. His followers were known as Arnie’s Army. Even on that practice day at Muirfield he had a bigger following than Nicklaus, Jacklin and Trevino, the three real contenders in golf at the time. They actually finished first, second and third at that Open Championship. 

No, Palmer was the man. Although Nicklaus won twice as many majors, Palmer did win nine between 1958 and 1964. Although Nicklaus would win seven more after that Muirfield Open and Palmer would never challenge again, it was still Palmer who was holding court with the fans. 

I really never rated his swing and had gotten into golf almost a decade after his last Major win but I knew who was the pop star golfer. Palmer was a charismatic figure, a man who could draw the ordinary person into golf. It was he who turned the British Open into a major event again when he came across the Atlantic to play in it and win it in 1961 and 1962. 

I have many autographs. I often flick fondly through soccer players George Best, Pat Jennings, athlete Ron Clarke, boxer Henry Cooper and golfers like Nicklaus, Watson, Ballesteros, Trevino, Jacklin, Norman and Faldo but Arnold Palmer’s was special. Arnold Palmer for goodness sake. It maybe never gets more legendary than that.

THE QUESTION THE OLYMPICS KEEP ON ASKING ME

The Olympics. It is the one fortnight every four years where almost everyone gets caught up in sport. Even my wife and daughters who just about cope with my sports obsession are not only watching but giving details of certain events, showing a little passion and giving a few cheers!

It is difficult not to be inspired. Interview after interview with exhausted athletes, sharing their stories of hard work to be here and get a medal. For some it is gold. For others a silver or a bronze is more than they ever dreamed of. For others just getting there is a lifetime’s ambition… and a lot of sacrifice and hard work. 

I have been watching the Olympic Games since I was a 6 year old in 1968. I remember it being on in the early morning. My parents were athletes. I attended the Commonwealth Games as a 8 year old in 1970. The Olympics has been part of my life and even I have been more inspired and challenged than I ever have been before by the events in Rio.

I am coming out of a holiday period. My mind and heart and soul are beginning to think of my vocation. The cogs are getting back into gear. The question that comes back to me as I listen to the the interviews and commentaries of the Olympics is how dedicated am I prepared to be?

Our motto in Fitzroy is 10:10. It is my birthday and does suggest 100% but we use it because of Jesus words in The Gospel Of John chapter 10 verse 10 - “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”  This summer in Arua, Uganda I had people chanting 10:10! Of course we believe that that fulness is the gift of God’s grace… but if we want to milk it… if we want to 10:10 that 10:10 then what if we showed the same commitment as Kenny, Trott, Grainger, Peaty, Farah, those Women's Hockey Players and don’t forget those O’Donovan brothers from Cork!

The apostle Paul’s take on all of this sport is recorded in 1 Corinthians 9:25 - “Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever.”

I have been working this week on a commissioned magazine article about U2’s 40th Anniversary. My research and planning have been more thorough as a result of these Games. Now for the new year in Fitzroy. Let’s give 10:10 to our 10:10 gift. Let’s give it everything and see what can be achieved!

STOCKI SURMISES HOW LEICESTER CITY ARE PREMIERSHIP CHAMPIONS

Leicester City are Premier League Champions! It is very hard to take in. It has been described as the greatest ever sporting achievement. It is a wonderful thing for football. Even those who pride themselves in having absolutely no interest in soccer were drawn in to the fairytale. It is a story that will be told as long as there is a thing called sport and a city called Leicester. 

First up, it might have the making of a fairytale. It might have the happy ending feeling of a fairytale. Yet, do not trivialise what Leicester City’s players, manager and coaching staff have just done to a fairytale. This was an utterly incredible achievement that took skill, strategy, hard work and just sheer sporting nerve. No one was manipulating an imaginative script. This is for real!

It all started so fun like. Leicester were bottom of the league for most of last season and somehow survived in what was the great escape. Then they started this season with some wins and their striker Jamie Vardy, who had been a non league player until very recently, scored goals in the most consecutive number of Premiership games ever. They were still trying to get 40 points and stay up.

Even as they went top of the table they were dismissed as not being serious contenders. For me my cynicism disappeared on an afternoon in February when they came to play my beloved Manchester City at the Etihad. I was convinced that we would give them a darn good hiding and it would propel us to another title and send Leicester crashing, ending up being thrilled to gain a Europa League spot. Even at 2-0 down… BUT they stuffed us! 3-1. Maybe… surely not… but maybe!

Today they are Champions with two games left. City made it with two seconds to spare in 2012. Here are the staggering facts. If you picked Leicester and Manchester City’s strongest teams, Manchester City’s cost £240 million more! Indeed few City players cost less than Leicester’s entire team. Manchester United have spent more on transfers in the last two seasons than Leicester have in their 132 year history. In today’s Premiership world where money wins Leicester have proved all that wrong! 

So how did they do it? Well you don’t do it without hard work, skill and good management. That taken as read, there are a few factors that led to this seeming freak of nature. They had very few injuries. Their key players particularly played most games. Vardy and Mahrez were ever presents. Every player played out of their skin. They had a team ethic that was tight and everyone worked hard for everyone else.

Manager Claudio Ranieri was in a class of his own. He took over a team that Nigel Pearson had put together but his tactics and everything about what he did was heroic. He didn't go changing everything. He worked out his team’s strengths and the opponents weaknesses and he inspired these players to play the best they could possibly play for 36 games running! That he did it with humour and grace and no silly mind games or grumpy asides about officials and opponents is even better!

It does have to be said though, and this is not belittling them, a couple of other phenomenal things happened. Who’d have believed that Champions Chelsea would struggle to make the top half. The fall from the pinnacle under Mourinho was as big a mystery (and for some pleasure!) as Leicester winning.

Chelsea out of the way and surely Manchester City would cruise to the title with easily the best squad. Even with that squad injuries, loss of form and the strange succession of Pep as manger for next season all contrived to have them struggle for the top 4. Arsenal? Well only Arsene knows. All this gave Leicester a gap on the inside rail and fair play they took it.

Can they do it again? I doubt it BUT then we doubted they could do it once. The Champions League will bring money but it also brings more matches, tough matches, and injuries along with it. Expectations bring pressure and everyone will want to beat the Champions next season. 

Finally, as a City fan, hear me out. Yes, City cost so much more money and failed. Yet, seeing Leicester’s title as all that happened would be a wrong perspective. City have won the League Cup (not enough return on investment for sure), would have gotten further in the FA Cup had they not put the youth team out in the Quarter Final to save legs for the Champions League. They are in the semi final of that Champions League and though it is a very outside chance to beat Real Madrid away, a chance it is. Could Leicester have won the title, another domestic cup and reached the Champions League semi-final with that squad? 

Whatever, let us all bask in this moment. We are all Leicester fans right now. For me, I feel that nothing can beat the feeling of City’s Premiership win in 2012. I have had the feeling. I am delighted to share it around. Even more delighted that it is a team that has never won it before and never expected to win it. It is a moment when we were back in the 70s when Derby, Burnley and QPR have it a good lash. Let us all enjoy it and get ready for next season. A Leicester v C. Palace Charity Shield? Now that would be something!

Dilly ding, dilly dong!