Was the 2014/15 escape Leicester's greatest ever?

[MattFox]

24 minutes ago, fox_up_north said:

Christ...that table from 2014...Stoke, Swansea, Hull, Sunderland. You can see how the money is concentrating in SE / North West. 

 

Norwich, Burnley, Leeds and Newcastle are the real outliers. You could include us in a Midlands cluster. But, up to 2 of those will go this season and Newcastle have used a cheat code. 

 

If you look at the Championship, there's a chance we could get a Boro, Huddersfield or Sheffield again but that's it. 

15 of the 20 clubs were Northern/ Midlands in 2010/2011

 

League has changed massively over the last decade

[messerschmitt]

1 hour ago, Foxes1 said:

I remember the 1990/91 season when we won on the last day at home to Oxford Utd to stop us falling into the third tier for the first time ever. Tony James scored the winning goal.

'Leicester’s narrow 1-0 victory, coupled with West Brom’s draw with Bristol Rovers, sparked wild celebrations among the Filbert Street faithful, who spilled out onto the pitch at full-time to celebrate with the players.

Meanwhile, at Twerton Park, the Baggies were consigned to relegation to the Third Division.'

I remember it well, I was there, didn't we manage to delay the kick off so we were the last game to finish and knew if we held on to win we stayed up?

[Foxes1]

7 minutes ago, messerschmitt said:

I remember it well, I was there, didn't we manage to delay the kick off so we were the last game to finish and knew if we held on to win we stayed up?

No we didn't delay the kick-off it was delayed in the game at Twerton Park so we had to wait for that result. 

[Guest Electric Yetis]

46 minutes ago, Matt_Lcfc said:

Yeah, Hull was the game for me. We were decent that season but it was shocking that day. We couldn’t break ten men Hull down, they were probably the worst team in the division that season too. It actually is remarkable when you think about it.

 

 

Think everyone in the stands believed we had gone after that.

 

Just remember Nick Powell being brought on for us to moans and groans from the crowd.

[messerschmitt]

1 hour ago, Foxes1 said:

No we didn't delay the kick-off it was delayed in the game at Twerton Park so we had to wait for that result. 

Funny how time plays tricks on your memory LOL.

[Stuntman_Mike]

2 hours ago, fox_up_north said:

Christ...that table from 2014...Stoke, Swansea, Hull, Sunderland. You can see how the money is concentrating in SE / North West. 

 

Norwich, Burnley, Leeds and Newcastle are the real outliers. You could include us in a Midlands cluster. But, up to 2 of those will go this season and Newcastle have used a cheat code. 

 

If you look at the Championship, there's a chance we could get a Boro, Huddersfield or Sheffield again but that's it. 

It also really shows how good and exciting English football is with promotion and relegations.

Where else in the world would you get that many teams change league in that space of time?

 

 

Edited 25 March 2022 by Stuntman_Mike

[The_77]

3 hours ago, kushiro said:

Tomorrow, March 26th, is the anniversary of the body of King Richard III being reburied in Leicester Cathedral in 2015. We all know what that was the trigger for. But was that recovery the greatest in our history? Or was there another season with an even more unlikely escape from relegation? That's the question to be answered in this thread - a countdown of Leicester's Top Five Greatest Escapes:

 

5) 1974/75

 

 

This picture of Jimmy Bloomfield celebrating his 41st birthday appeared in the papers in February 1975. But his expression looks more like exasperation than celebration.

Everything was going wrong. Frank Worthington had gone 16 League games without a goal. Peter Shilton had left for Stoke City and replacement Mark Wallington had broken his wrist. Keith Weller had asked for a transfer, then refused to play the second half of a home defeat to Ipswich after being barracked by fans. The players no longer wanted Weller as captain. Results on the pitch reflected the off-field disharmony - on the morning of February 22nd, after 13 games without a win, and less than a year after being hailed as the most exciting team in the League, the table revealed the grim reality:

 

 

Three up / three down had been introduced this season, so the gap to safety, rather than being a single point to Carlisle in 20th, was a massive six points to Spurs in 19th (and there were only two points for a win then). That day we headed for White Hart Lane.  It was a great chance for Spurs to pull further away from danger - and to bang another nail in the Leicester coffin. 

 

It didn't work out like that. We cruised to a 3-0 victory - the scorers Jon Sammels, Mike Stringfellow (his last for the club) - and Frank Worthington, finally back in the goals.

 

After the game Alan Birchenall put the boot in: 'We've got problems, but not as many as they have. That's the worst Spurs team I've ever seen'.

 

The mood at the club lifted. The following week, in place of 'crisis' headlines, we got this:

 

 

That's Frank on stage at a Grumbleweeds concert in the city. The day that picture appeared, Frank got the winner at Carlisle. So that was two crucial away wins in eight days - the start of a run of just one defeat in eleven games. Pretty soon we were above Spurs. Our key players were new names -  Bob Lee, finally given a run in the team, and new signings Jeff Blockley and Chris Garland.  Highlights of the run-in were a 2-2 draw at European Cup finalists Leeds United, and Garland's hattrick in a 3-2 home win v Wolves.

 

We finished in 18th place, three points clear of the drop, with Spurs 19th and Carlisle, Chelsea and Luton going down. 

 

 

4)  1983/84

 

After getting promoted so spectacularly the previous season, Gordon Milne must have been confident that the Lineker / Smith / Lynex combination could terrify a few defences in the top flight too. What a shock we all got.

 

Mark Wallington was the only survivor of the 74/75 escape,  but a contract dispute meant he sat out the first five games, giving new signing Mark Grew a chance. It was quite a baptism. The first two games were home defeats to Notts County (4-0) and Luton Town (3-0). Here's where I introduce my own form of illustration. I used to make little doodles in my school exercise books - and I still have this effort that tells the story:

 

 

The caption reads: Which way does Mark Grew turn? Shots from long range fly to every corner in his first 2 City games.  It's a bit hard to blame Grew, given that he was defending a goal which, judging from the lines on the page, appears to be 12 yards high.

 

Here's a picture of that Martin O'Neill goal (the Mercury's attempt to photoshop the ball into the picture just as amateurish as my cartoon):

 

 

Things didn't improve. We lost the next four as well - the worst start in our history, and after 10 games we had just TWO points:

 

 

Then it all started to click. Lineker started scoring, Bob Hazell was bought to strengthen the defence, and gradually we realised we could hold our own against anyone. A run of seven unbeaten around Christmas took us out of the bottom three, and we ended up relatively comfortably in 15th after some scintillating performances like the 3-3 draw with Liverpool (which could be in a different Top 5 - the greatest games ever seen at Filbert Street).

 

3) 1932/33

 

If you saw the recent thread about the Rapid Vienna game you'll be familiar with this one. It's February and we still have only two wins to our name. Look at the table and you can see that if three points for a win had been in place then we'd have been in even deeper trouble. Four points adrift at the bottom was bad enough:

 

 

Then, after the Austrians gave us a footballing lesson and a few bits of advice, we altered our formation and went on a great run, safety assured on the last day with a 6-2 win v West Brom.  Here's a photo from the 1-1 draw v champions Arsenal in March, the Gunners having received permission to change their kit to a new white-sleeved design just the week before:

 

 

 

 

Just a word of explanation before the top two greatest escapes - we're not talking necessarily about last day dramas here, but taking a longer perspective, looking at moments across a whole season when we looked utterly doomed. So just missing out on this Top 5 were Tony James v Oxford in 1991 and Ian McNeill's similarly dramatic winner at Birmingham in 1958.

 

Right, on we go:

 

2)  2014/15 

 

What?? Not number one? 

 

Here's a reminder of how the Premier League stood when King Richard was buried. We had  nine games to play:

 

 

We had won only twice since September, and it was now early April. But one thing that might have given us hope was that of the fixtures remaining, six out of nine were at home, many of them against teams with little left to play for.  It's a familiar story so I'll just round this part off with a single photo, of what many cite as THE crucial moment in the whole Leicester City title miracle story:

 

 

 

1) 1958/ 59

 

Matt Gillies had been in the job six months. But how long would he last?  This was the table on the morning of March 27th as we headed for Burnden Park, Bolton:

 

 

Leicester had lost six in a row and looked doomed. One bookie was offering odds of 50-1 against us staying up. Just like 2014/15, the darkest hour came with nine games to play. The five point gap to safety here was the equivalent of the seven point gap in 2014/15 (with three points for a win). We were dead and buried, surely, and there was no King Richard to save us. Were there any other useful omens? Well, it was Good Friday...

 

Portsmouth, our partners in misery at the bottom, threw in the towel. From that point they lost all their remaining games, and didn't get back to the top flight for 30 years. Would the same have happened to us had we gone down? No Ice Kings? No Cup Finals in the 60s? That's how much may have been riding on our finding a way to stay up.

 

Given the drama of the run-in, it's a story with a surprisingly minor place in Leicester City mythology. And it's one that needs telling in some detail...

 

To be continued.

 

 

One of the best posts ever on FT during an international break. Thank you for such an enjoyable read. 

[Dan]

I wish I could relive that West Brom game. In a lot of ways it was my favourite ever.

[Lambert09]

I think in context it was, we escaped all the way to the top of the table. At the start of the season a lot of our results were the continued winning momentum... that’s usually what evaporates from promoted sides in the second year 

[goody2028]

4 minutes ago, Dan LCFC said:

I wish I could relive that West Brom game. In a lot of ways it was my favourite ever.

At the time I thought the final 9 games of that season would never have been beaten for atmosphere and sheer emotion… and then we went and won it the year after  

[Sharpe's Fox]

That side is still my favorite ever. Leaders all over the pitch, prime Vardy, serenading Cambiasso, Wasilewski scissoring Ayoze Pezez. To top it off Nigel Pearson at the helm, the man who built our football club. The Don.

[OntarioFox]

I'm kind of biased, but the whole period from us being dead and buried, to lifting the Premier League crown, being bookended by goals from Andy King is something I'll dine out on for the rest of my life. 

 

[Sol thewall Bamba]

I loved that season. Didn't see us win in the league until about March but I couldn't get enough. Agree that even with everything that came after it I think West Brom away that season is one of my all time favourites. 

[filbertway]

Jeff Schlupp realising we had stayed up, about 5 seconds after everyone else in the stadium was amazing

[enmac]

A friend in my local, a City fan all his life, passed away in early February, 2015. Life can be such a bitch. 

[Dan]

42 minutes ago, goody2028 said:

At the time I thought the final 9 games of that season would never have been beaten for atmosphere and sheer emotion… and then we went and won it the year after  

You can watch football for the rest of your life and you'll never see anything like that two years, especially not in a level like in England. To go from almost certain relegation in April 2015 (what odds were we anyone know?) to winning the Premier League a year later. How do you actually beat that?

[CosbehFox]

Early December, my brother and my mate went for a piss up in Birmingham, the day before we played Villa. In one pub; watching the 5.30 some bloke asked who we supported. He said some crap about ‘you are already down, don’t why you’ve bothered coming’ 

 

To stay up that season, following season win the league whilst simultaneously Villa got relegated 😂😂

[Supergray22]

It has to be the greatest. Strange how quickly we  grew accustomed to winning though in that run. I remember being so disappointed when we lost to Chelsea in April 2015. Particularly as I was watching with a Chelsea mate. 

[Corky]

The team got into a position to survive and held it's nerve brilliantly. Hull won a couple of games, Sunderland won a couple of games too which meant we couldn't keep pulling away. Remember being in the concourse watching Sunderland win at Everton and it kept us close to the bottom three but we scored a couple of early goals against Southampton, won comfortably and we all but there and safe.

 

Brilliant six weeks, probably one of the best runs we've ever had given the circumstances.

[sylofox]

Everyone goes on about the great escape and our relegation to what was div 3. Different time and game.

 

Had we gone down against oxford not sure we would have came back. The Shipmans would never have paid. But some of us would still have turned up.

 

LTID

[Spudulike]

2 hours ago, goody2028 said:

At the time I thought the final 9 games of that season would never have been beaten for atmosphere and sheer emotion… and then we went and won it the year after  

That's my only regret. Looking back it was obvious what was going to happen the following season. It'd all clicked into place, the stars had aligned and that team (our team) was on an unstoppable roll. The football Gods had spoken (or Richard III). Why didn't I stick a bet on 

[Plastik Man]

6 hours ago, Les-TA-Jon said:

I remember coming away from the Hull game just before the final run-in. Going into the game everyone sort of knew we needed to win in order to have a chance to stay up. It finished 0-0 and we were lucky to not lose, with Jelavic missing a sitter. 

 

We all felt we were down. I said walking out of the turnstiles "Well, theoretically we can still stay up, we'd just have to win 7 or 8 of the final 9 matches" 

 

Just think how mad that sounds, in the context of that moment, and yet...We. Actually. Did. It. 

I remember thinking after the Hull game that was about it and we'd inevitably lose players like Mahrez when we were relegated. 

 

The next 9 matches were incredible. After that the sky really was the limit! 

[Spudulike]

5 hours ago, OntarioFox said:

I'm kind of biased, but the whole period from us being dead and buried, to lifting the Premier League crown, being bookended by goals from Andy King is something I'll dine out on for the rest of my life. 

 

King's goal against Swansea was one of my all-time favourites. 1 nil up going into the last couple of minutes after spending the previous 15 mins defending deeper and deeper as Swansea created chance after chance. Seemed only a mater of time before the equaliser. A breakaway and a free kick just outside the box is won which, if nothing else, relives the pressure. Up steps the Magic Man and then... 

 

 

That's when I knew 'We are staying up'! 

[Guest Electric Yetis]

13 minutes ago, Spudulike said:

King's goal against Swansea was one of my all-time favourites. 1 nil up going into the last couple of minutes after spending the previous 15 mins defending deeper and deeper as Swansea created chance after chance. Seemed only a mater of time before the equaliser. A breakaway and a free kick just outside the box is won which, if nothing else, relives the pressure. Up steps the Magic Man and then... 

 

 

That's when I knew 'We are staying up'! 

Yeah loved that game and was delighted King had a hand getting us out with 2 goals in the run in.

 

Think after this match was the first time we'd escaped the relegation zone?

[Arriba Los Zorros]

13 hours ago, Sampson said:

That West Ham game where the run started is one we don’t talk about enough. Was massive in the context of the clubs history.

 

We’d played brilliantly that game but it was 1-1 and Nugent had missed a penalty. Remember saying during the game that summed up our season, playing well but missing a bunch of chances including a penalty.

 

Then Kingy poked one in in the dying minutes and after that we didn’t stop winning for over a year afterwards.

 

Must’ve been Andy King’s most important goal for us.

 

Pretty sure we’d switched to 3-4-1-2 from 4-4-2 in that game and Albrighton came into the side after barely featuring all season as well and he was brilliant during the great escape run and made a big difference.

Agreed that West ham game was the lifeline that gave belief. 

 

I remember being away in Buxton, staying in a hotel with my then girlfriend and avoiding seeing the score. She looked and kept it from me all day. We watchdd MOTD and before it I said we don't win this, we're down. It was 1-1 and Kingy got that late winner. I went crazy as if seeing it live! 

 

Just felt in my gut we'd do it after that, like a corner had been turned, our  luck had changed and so it proved. 

 

One of our best ever kits too that season.