Question for Leicester fans

[Raj]

1 minute ago, Daggers said:

Nota bene: Raj is more likely to have had a threesome with Martin O’Neill and Martin Allen than ever having got within 6ft of Kelly Brook. 

🤣🤣🤣🤣 I told you never to tell anyone about that incident.

It was just a works event which went wrong!!!

Hope your well Dave x

[Daggers]

16 hours ago, Shev said:

Hey all, Wycombe fan here. I have a question (to satisfy my curiosity, more than anything) to pose to you all.

 

How would you describe the journey from L1 to present day, but rather than the obvious (winning the league was awesome, FA Cup was brilliant) instead focusing on the nuance of how it affected you personally in relation to your club and to the game itself. Were there unexpected aspects to how you felt after the league win? Was there nothing but a sense of "now I can die in peace", or was here a deflating aspect to reaching the mountain top after the fact? If the latter, what got you hooked again? And where has it all left you present day? Are you as passionate as you were before you had won the league? Less? more? How has dining at the top table with the giants of the sport made you feel about the soul of the game?

 

Hopefully you all see what I am trying to get at. I am fascinated by "the journey" Leicester fans have been on, as it is quite unique, but I feel there must be a lot of subtle aspects to how it has all gone for each fan personally that may be missed by fans of other clubs.

 

Cheers!

I know this is unpopular, but I’m just treading water until we can offload a bunch of wagon jumpers and go back to being properly shit. I much preferred promotion and relegation battles. 
 

After the title I was left numb about football, it’s only towards the end of last season I could be arsed with it again. 
 

Bring on the chaos of uncertainty.

[Lambert09]

15 hours ago, ozleicester said:

I've noticed among other fans ( not myself I hope) an attitude of entitlement. (Top4/6, regular European matches)

 

Still in my mind I don't quite believe it...League champions AND FA cup winners.

entitlement or a new found ambition? 

[Gerard]

I think I speak for a lot of fans that there was a hangover to winning the league. 

 

It was absolutely brilliant and surpassed any realistic ambitions we had for the club. The following season started too soon and it almost felt football should have just ended at that point. We had won at football but they want us to start again in August and put that season to bed.

 

Like the average guy dating a beautiful Hollywood actress and when you break up you know for you it's never going to get that good again and you have to settle back at your level.

 

It took me at least a year to rediscover my love for the club and football, when you've climbed Everest what else is there to do?

[deep blue]

1 hour ago, Hammo said:

Can I just point out that increased expectation does not equal ‘entitlement’ (which has become one of those annoying football buzzwords).

 

There is a big difference between the two. And I would place most current Leicester fans, myself included, firmly in the ‘increased expectation’ camp.

 

It is not a sin to want the good times to keep rolling. Especially with a squad of players that is arguably the most talented this club has ever had. 

 

 

In my opinion this is spot on.  If the choice is to have the ambition of continual progress or of being happy with eventual abject decline I know which I would prefer, and I call that "being positive and forward-looking", not entitled.  Entitlement is expecting success just because your club has a rich history or pots of money.

 

I agree with other posters that our identity is in being the underdog and having to have fight and commitment to bring about our successful moments  It should always be that way.

 

I am sad that, since the title win, although we have competed in some seasons with the big six we haven't been successful in breaking the monopoly they have.  I would welcome other clubs like us shaking the system up.

 

One of the biggest pleasures for me in our title win was that we stuck up a finger to the big six and the bodies that support and promote the status quo - the football authorities, the betting firms, the broadcast companies etc.  I did quite enjoy having put a bet on at 5000-1 too 

 

I always enjoy supporters of othe clubs coming on here and widening the discussion.  Thanks for starting an interesting and entertaining thread.  Good luck to Wycombe for the rest of the season.

[Gerard]

2 hours ago, Raj said:

It's like somehow you've  bedded Kelly Brook!.

Your used to female snooker refs all your life, you bag Kelly Brook and now your reputation has propelled you to bagging a better quality of female snooker refs!

You KNOW you will never bag Kelly Brook EVER again but your happy with your current predicament as every now and again you'll bag a stunner (Like the FA Cup or beating Luverpool) which you still cant believe!

Most days though you lie awake at night and dream "Did that REALLY  happen?"

It's like you look in the mirror and you see Bradley Cooper but you really look like Harry Kane!!!

 

Personally though as a 50 year old asian who actually started going down in the 90s under Martin o Neill (and being there when you bastards knocked us out the FA Cup with that bloke from teletext!!!) the ups and downs of City have been a real rollercoaster.

Weve  had Everything...relegation,administration,  promotions, scandals, new ground, loads of owners,  loads and loads of managers, some crazy like Martin Allen and some unbelievable  like Sven Goran and some legends like Pearson and Claudio.

The death of our esteemed  owner, our legends written into history like Wes Morgan,Kasper, Vardy etc. European nights, nights abroad, FA Cup win, ...its just been brilliant.

I dont care what happens from now on, as I think weve had alot more than expected.

 

Hope that helps @Shev!!!

 

 

 

Just read this after I made my above post, great minds and all that. 

[Angus Scott]

Hi Wycombe fan. Not really an answer to your question but may I say how much I enjoyed the visit to your ground for our pre-season friendly.

 

Also, the very best of luck in hopefully getting Derby liquidated

[iancognito]

Part of me yearns for 2010-2015 all over again. Everyone loves the exposure of the Premier League but the bond that initial "bounceback" squad had was special. We had years of awful, dirge football before that L1 drop but it really did galvanise the club and make us reset. There's still plenty of members on here that were part of that experience, where a lot of us just formed bonds and tried to live the experience of almost being at a level we'd never been at. We had 5 years of progression before the Premier League and that's the bit that will always stick with me.The upward curve was really special because even before the current owners you could see we were building something, a new ethos of building the team round young, hungry players not journeymen.

 

Post title-win there's a very weird sense of having nothing special to aim for, almost like the meme of Vardy with the FA Cup - "Football - Completed It Mate". We could be relegated, win Championship titles, have record-breaking winning seasons and sign great players but we've been there and done it.  I've compared it before to a computer game. Once you've beaten the final boss, there's almost nothing else to do on it. Do it faster, get more bonuses but nothing beats the first achievement. Even if we did win the league again, with more points or more skillful players, we've had our peak. Just like Man City with "Aguerooooooo", United with the treble, it doesn't get more special than 5000-1. I'm still in disbelief in a way about 2016 and now having backed that up with our first FA Cup - and having been there for both - I'm really hoping the matchday experience & being at every game with friends doesn't fade.

[Out Foxed]

16 hours ago, Shev said:

Hey all, Wycombe fan here. I have a question (to satisfy my curiosity, more than anything) to pose to you all.

 

How would you describe the journey from L1 to present day, but rather than the obvious (winning the league was awesome, FA Cup was brilliant) instead focusing on the nuance of how it affected you personally in relation to your club and to the game itself. Were there unexpected aspects to how you felt after the league win? Was there nothing but a sense of "now I can die in peace", or was here a deflating aspect to reaching the mountain top after the fact? If the latter, what got you hooked again? And where has it all left you present day? Are you as passionate as you were before you had won the league? Less? more? How has dining at the top table with the giants of the sport made you feel about the soul of the game?

 

Hopefully you all see what I am trying to get at. I am fascinated by "the journey" Leicester fans have been on, as it is quite unique, but I feel there must be a lot of subtle aspects to how it has all gone for each fan personally that may be missed by fans of other clubs.

 

Cheers!

i stopped having to explain to people that leicester was near birmingham or london when abroad and people, especially foreigners, love talking to me about leicester and how they're getting on. 

[Paninistickers]

Not trying to be contrary to most comments so far, but our elevation to a 'top 8' club has seemed entirely natural to me. To the Manor born. (Yet, if I sat watching from afar as our like sized equivalents Middlesbrough, West brom or Palace won the league and Cup, I'd be slack jawed)

 

 I'm thirsty for more. I want European big games next. Semis, finals, away trips to Bayern and Juve. The two trophies haven't dampened my desire at all. In fact, the trophies have heightened it. 

 

 

[Foxxed]

2 hours ago, Hammo said:

Can I just point out that increased expectation does not equal ‘entitlement’ (which has become one of those annoying football buzzwords).

 

There is a big difference between the two. And I would place most current Leicester fans, myself included, firmly in the ‘increased expectation’ camp.

 

It is not a sin to want the good times to keep rolling. Especially with a squad of players that is arguably the most talented this club has ever had. 

 

 

Yeah the most annoying thing about our recent success is the confusion between the words "entitlement" and "expectation". Instead of spraying around the phrase "entitled fans" to demark those you've removed from your christmas card list why not just use route one? Call them *****. **** this tappy-tappy bullshit. They'll thank you for it I'm sure. I'm not sure anyone has any expectations now anyway. Most of the first team are in the physio's room mustering up the battling spirit of Matty James and enjoying watching the u23s forays into the first team.

[worth_the_wait]

So many emotions and feelings after our title win.   I'd be here all week trying to put it all down in writing.
 
But the one thing that struck me within a few minutes of winning the title was this ...
 
It overrode every League defeat, relegation, and playoff defeat in our history.  It made them all meaningless.   
In fact, more than that, it was necessary for us to have lost all the League games we did, and fail when we did.
If anything had been different, like a butterfly in the Amazon jungle flapping its wings, it could have changed the course of history.
I'm glad that Stoke relegated us in 2008. 

I'm glad that Watford beat us in the 2013 playoff semi final.
And I'm glad of every other miserable defeat and failure.
If anything had changed, we may have ended up at the same place.  But we might not have.   And I wouldn't have taken the chance.

 

It was totally cathartic, and all the bad memories floated away in an instant.
 
I can't quite bring myself to say the same for all the cup failures, like Tottenham beating us in the 1982 FA Cup semi final or 1999 League Cup final.  But maybe I should?    If we'd won the FA Cup in 1982, Jock Wallace may have stayed an extra couple of years, we might not have appointed Gordon Milne to get promoted in 1983 ... and everything else might've been different all the way up to 2016.
 

There was one other peculiar emotion ...

Winning the League was 99% brilliant and 1% sad.   
The 1% sad bit is knowing that we've now experienced the best that's ever going to happen.  Nothing we do will ever quite match that feeling.  Clubs like West Ham, Palace, Brighton, Middlesbrough, Southampton, Stoke, Birmingham and loads of others have still potentially got their best day ahead of them and still to come.   Ours has happened, and is now history.

Don't get me wrong, I still treasure the memories and nothing can ever take away what we won.  Our name is engraved as Champions for ever.
But there's that little sadness, that knows I will never quite feel that way ever again.

 

[gw_leics772]

Id love.to write a full essay here but a few key points. 

-winning the league was a freaky one-off and we dropped off immediately.

Chasing cl spots for the last few years feels almost more important to where we are now.

- winning the league was not something we dreamt about. Too unrealistic. Winning the fa cup was the dream and that felt like more sustainable progress for the here and now.

-The season was hilarious. Real pinch yourself moment. Spent a lot of time laughing about how ridiculous it was but genuinely believed the team could beat everyone (and apart from arsenal we pretty much did)

- it took a long time to contemplate winning the league as a real possibility. Even though we were top for most of the season, we were working out how bad we could afford to be and still achieve something as mad as champions league.

- it really did go flat after, we were pretty much the worst defending champions but it wasn't exactly unexpected. The love wasn't as good but Rodgers football at the beginning brought the love and excitement back.

-This season is a bit meh! But we still ain't far away, but I personally think Rodgers has earned enough credit for us to live with a nothing season and go again. Just that danger that we lose our best players. (But some of the football this season was so bad we wouldn't have lost mich sleep of he went man u when the rumours were doing the rounds)

- personally aiming to be the 7th best team consistently (big 6 + leicester) and with the big boys taking it in turns to implode, that should get you top 6 most years with the odd champions league.

 

And thanks to Wycombe for playing your part in starting the rot as we needed to sink to the depths to completely rebuild. Without the lows, we wouldn't have got the highest of highs. ****ing Roy essandoh! 🤣🤣🤣

 

Always look out for you guys with the MON connection.

Edited 18 January 2022 by gw_leics772

[Supergray22]

Great question. One that we all love being asked I think. 
For me personally it just coincided with a very happy time in my life when I was doing really well in my career and having met a very special person in my life.
The football was almost an out of body experience that season. I found that it was on my mind almost 24 hours a day and I had to share it with people as a coping mechanism. I remember one night chatting with a club bouncer out in the smoking area for hours just going over how amazing we were doing. I think we were all in denial until manchester away. The point at which we had to make ourselves vulnerable and admit even to ourselves that it was on. Never seen a city side retain the ball move it around and cut through a team like that before. 
The night of the spurs Chelsea match I was just out of hospital off work on my own at home. recovering from a knee operation (2nd Acl) horizontal on the sofa with a bottle of red. Didn’t sleep a wink all night with the excitement, texting everyone I knew at silly o’clock. 
The trophy presentation was unreal and almost biblical. The rainstorm parted and the sun shone through. My dear dads favourate singer Bochelli launched into song. A really classy way to celebrate the most unlikely of sporting triumphs. That night was a bit of a blur. The last thing I remember was sharing whiskey with strangers around the clock tower watching motorcycles doing donuts in the streets whilst fans danced on top of bus shelters. Did anyone else see that?Woke up the next morning at my folks house with my knee bandage rolled down half undressed not knowing how I got home and no crutches to be seen. Still seems like a dream. 
Thereafter  it does change your expectations somewhat and you have to learn to temper this and rationalise it. I think we have done a pretty good job of capitalising on that season and using it to better ourselves on and off the pitch and the wider community. The champions league run, fa cup triumph and league placing s have all been the icing on the cake and it probably won’t last forever. Training facility and stadium expansion hopefully will. Best of all I think it changed, if only briefly, the perception that anything really is possible with team spirit effort and a dose of fortune. I think you still see a bit of that spirit in other top division teams and their fans even now almost six years later. 

[Vestan Pance]

I feel it's given me a bit more humility towards supporters of other teams outside of the 'Big 6' and a sort of feeling that we're in it together against the stacked deck. 

 

I also feel I've become a bit more impatient with the current players because of resources and budget we now have is huge comparable to 2016, I know it's an unfair comparison and we're still fighting the odds, but nothing like we were.

 

 

 

 

[PhillippaT]

3 hours ago, iancognito said:

Part of me yearns for 2010-2015 all over again. Everyone loves the exposure of the Premier League but the bond that initial "bounceback" squad had was special. We had years of awful, dirge football before that L1 drop but it really did galvanise the club and make us reset. There's still plenty of members on here that were part of that experience, where a lot of us just formed bonds and tried to live the experience of almost being at a level we'd never been at. We had 5 years of progression before the Premier League and that's the bit that will always stick with me.The upward curve was really special because even before the current owners you could see we were building something, a new ethos of building the team round young, hungry players not journeymen.

 

Post title-win there's a very weird sense of having nothing special to aim for, almost like the meme of Vardy with the FA Cup - "Football - Completed It Mate". We could be relegated, win Championship titles, have record-breaking winning seasons and sign great players but we've been there and done it.  I've compared it before to a computer game. Once you've beaten the final boss, there's almost nothing else to do on it. Do it faster, get more bonuses but nothing beats the first achievement. Even if we did win the league again, with more points or more skillful players, we've had our peak. Just like Man City with "Aguerooooooo", United with the treble, it doesn't get more special than 5000-1. I'm still in disbelief in a way about 2016 and now having backed that up with our first FA Cup - and having been there for both - I'm really hoping the matchday experience & being at every game with friends doesn't fade.

The ability to really love 'the grind' in addition to just/solely winning, is something that also separates a lot of different individual champions from others, let alone the fans - for some, one 'title' etc. is enough, whereas for others it never is - (see: Hunt/Nico Rosberg vs Lauda/Hamilton in F1 etc.)  Some sports are worse for the former compared to the latter (see: ATP tennis), but if you're not absorbed by the grind such sports involve, then are you truly a 'fan' at all, rather than just a follower?  

 

Note: we see this difference in application of grind vs winning in modern day computer games, too...

 

Quote

I feel it's given me a bit more humility towards supporters of other teams outside of the 'Big 6' and a sort of feeling that we're in it together against the stacked deck. 

The ESL debacle rubbed that in, just to be sure, too!

Edited 18 January 2022 by PhillippaT

[The Horse's Mouth]

There is a sense of, we'll never get anything like that title win again, I genuinely think that even if we won the champions League it wouldn't match the general eurphoria togetherness of the city itself at the time. No slagging players, no questioning the manager every 5 seconds, almost felt like I was a kid again in that sense you just live for the moment. 

 

And like, people will argue and could be correct as well that this Rodgers era(ignoring this season) has been the most successful sustained period this club has had, while playing some of the best football we've seen but I'm almost disconnected in terms of when we were fighting for top 4 I didn't feel really excited for it if that makes sense, that makes me sound slightly entitled but it's not even that, it's probably more just content with what I've seen. The FA Cup win was really special to me personally, because as a kid I'd never dreamt of us winning the prem because it seemed too unrealistic.

 

I think you could make an argument that since the 2000s nobody has had a genuine rollercoaster ride like we've had, you could argue maybe Man City for the fans anyway rather than how they achieved it. 

[Flamey]

@Shev surely your username should have been..

 

The Wycombe Wonderer? 

[shailen]

It's funny as if the worst was to happen and say in 10 seasons time we were back in the Championship, we'd look at these times with great fondness, when we just finished outside the top 4 twice and won the PL, FA cup and got to the CL quarter finals. The goalposts always seem to move, but we as fans shouldn't forget what we have achieved over the last few seasons. It's been incredible and no one has successfully broken the big 4/6 monopoly in recent years like we have. 

[SemperEadem]

I miss feeling connected with the team and players. 

[Sly]

The goalpost move with expectation. From a business point of view. Once you’ve achieved something, you don’t sit back and not push for it to happen again.

 

For me, 15/16 and the title win sort of was the pinnacle of football for me. Having gone through the downs when we went into administration, relegation, the terrible football and countless managers; the rise through the Pearson years was brilliant. If we were to win the title again, it wouldn’t be the same. To a degree, even the FA Cup which was special, didn’t have that special feeling. 
 

 

[Spudulike]

4 minutes ago, shailen said:

It's funny as if the worst was to happen and say in 10 seasons time we were back in the Championship, we'd look at these times with great fondness, when we just finished outside the top 4 twice and won the PL, FA cup and got to the CL quarter finals. The goalposts always seem to move, but we as fans shouldn't forget what we have achieved over the last few seasons. It's been incredible and no one has successfully broken the big 4/6 monopoly in recent years like we have. 

Eventually the club will most probably have a dip in fortunes and might play lower league football again. However, we will have something tangible to show for our golden age and not just our name engraved on trophies and honours boards but something physical. Seagrave is great for the club and players but it's not really something for the fans. That's why the stadium development is so important and will be the legacy for future generations as a reminder of our history. 

[gerblod]

On 18/01/2022 at 03:44, Shev said:

Hey all, Wycombe fan here. I have a question (to satisfy my curiosity, more than anything) to pose to you all.

 

How would you describe the journey from L1 to present day, but rather than the obvious (winning the league was awesome, FA Cup was brilliant) instead focusing on the nuance of how it affected you personally in relation to your club and to the game itself. Were there unexpected aspects to how you felt after the league win? Was there nothing but a sense of "now I can die in peace", or was here a deflating aspect to reaching the mountain top after the fact? If the latter, what got you hooked again? And where has it all left you present day? Are you as passionate as you were before you had won the league? Less? more? How has dining at the top table with the giants of the sport made you feel about the soul of the game?

 

Hopefully you all see what I am trying to get at. I am fascinated by "the journey" Leicester fans have been on, as it is quite unique, but I feel there must be a lot of subtle aspects to how it has all gone for each fan personally that may be missed by fans of other clubs.

 

Cheers!

Awesome question!

As a longtime Leicester fan, I'd become jaundiced after a period characterised by questionable ownership and dire managerial appointments. The drop into the third tier was an embarrassing and shaming event for many of us.

At that point I didn't fall out of love with City, but I lost some interest. I'd experienced a close-run thing in the 90s, when we almost dropped out of the second tier - the relief I felt when we got a result against Middlesbrough sent me cheering around my works office!

Anyway, two significant changes happened - Nigel Pearson and the Srivaddhanaprabha family took over (the chronology is inaccurate but essentially unimportant at that point).

Pearson galvanised the squad and Walsh made very fortuitous signings. 

Two successive promotions, a joyous 5-3 trouncing of United and then a resilient climb out of the relegation zone showed something unusual was happening.

That's when I became proud of my team again - the beating of Man U. Then I realised there were some ultra-talented players assembled - world-class players. Watching City take on the 'best' and coming out on top (bar effing Arsenal) was the singularly most emotionally rewarding period of my old age. Not so much winning, but the pride in the knowledge that we were more talented, disciplined and resilient than the rest. 

In hindsight the Prem title unbalanced the longterm plan. It caused chaos - inappropriate and expensive recruitment and severe disappointment at the loss of Kante and Mahrez. Had they stayed, then the 5000-1ers might have astonished Europe.

But we've become a respected club - more so than in the Gillies era. And, off the pitch, the owners have demonstrated a solidity of purpose which has eclipsed those clubs with greater resources and more dubious morality.

I think it has caused a burgeoning of a level of entitlement and expectation, but City have achieved two trophies I never envisaged them capturing and they've whupped 'big' teams in spectacular fashion.

The emphasis will still be on the monied teams, but LCFC have established a singular position and look like they can maintain it. There's something tedious about the same teams using money to maintain dominance of the Prem and their challenge for the Champions League.

I enjoy being a Leicester fan - although I don't often show it here. 

 

 

[Guest TaggertvsWise]

When I was a kid growing up in East Leake there were about 2 of us that supported Leicester at school, everyone else was Forest or glory seeking Liverpool so I always pride myself in doing the hard yards. Now when anyone asks me who I support and I say Leicester they always ask why now, it’s as if they are trying to out me as a glory seeker which I quite like. That has been a big mental shift for me. 
 

Another phenomenon I have noticed is ‘new’ fans. We never seemed to really have those but the entitlement that comes with them immediately outs them as such.  I saw some comment on Twitter recently wanting Rodgers to go as we weren’t in the top 10 and sign off with ‘we want our club back’…. Mate if you want ‘old’ Leicester back then be prepared for a constant yo-yo between promotion & relegation! 
 

Overall the only thing that saddens me is that we’ll never really have the sense of that impossible excitement of those last few months leading up to our title win. It was an amazing time but has propelled us into international recognition, an amazing set up, European nights on a more regular basis and an FA Cup win.

 

So overall I am excited by the future now, we are an established club who can look to build as oppose to survive and push for a tier 2 level position alongside Arsenal & Spurs.  We are finding our level now as a level 2/3 club after years of over achievement. Hopefully in 20 years time we’ll be knocking on the door of being a genuine level 1 club. 
 

I’m a happy but realistic fan.

[sacreblueits442]

3 hours ago, gerblod said:

Not so much winning, but the pride in the knowledge that we were more talented, disciplined and resilient than the rest. 

...we brought that from the Championship....we were that good!!!

 I keep saying it but the Championship win was a dress rehearsal for the Premier league title. 

  The way we went from game to game and did the job, and then went on to the next game,  we were showing an attitude in the Championship only attributed to top 4 teams in the Premiership.  I was expecting to be in the top 10 and pushing for the top 6 when we came up, we were more than good enough to have achieved that.

  You only have to look back at the United 5-3, at 3-1 down, we were let off the leash, we were a force to be reckoned with, it wasn't  luck or one of those special days  that happened, ....if only  Pearson had believed more in the team, and himself.