Has our greatest success been tainted?

[ClaphamFox]

Us watching the PL on TV today...

 

[Foxdiamond]

1 hour ago, bovril said:

Agree how utterly wild it is we had never won the league and cup and then won them both in five years despite apparently being something of a shambles behind the scenes. Testament to how many brilliant players we had during that period. 

A quote from a Spurs programme dated 16 December 1967 for the visit of Leicester.  " Leicester City have never won the League Championship or FA Cup yet for a club drawing only moderate support compared to rivals they have maintained a commendable position in the First Division for years" To think we turned it all upside down from 2015 16 to 2020 21 can never be tainted 

[MrSpaM]

I'm sure all of our Midlands rivals like to think it is but it clearly isn't is it, it's a moment that will stay with me for the rest of my life

[Mapperleyfox]

8 hours ago, CosbehFox said:

Not really. 

 

It's just sadly followed the same way that many other 'provinicial' champions did. Kaiserslautern, Montpellier, Verona, Deportivo. 

 

We had the chance to be more Leverkusen, Atalanta, Villarreal given the financial benefits of the PL. Those four listed above didn't have that comfort. 

Those last four clubs should’ve been exactly who we were aspiring to in terms of business model etc, instead we’re heading for league one as the next Portsmouth thanks to Top and Rudkin. It’s ok though, the free teddies and donuts will sort it out….

[bovril]

5 hours ago, Foxdiamond said:

A quote from a Spurs programme dated 16 December 1967 for the visit of Leicester.  " Leicester City have never won the League Championship or FA Cup yet for a club drawing only moderate support compared to rivals they have maintained a commendable position in the First Division for years" To think we turned it all upside down from 2015 16 to 2020 21 can never be tainted 

Always bugged me growing up that we had never won the league or cup, especially the cup, which seemingly everyone has won. And maybe the most satisfying thing about that five year period is that nobody can say again that we have never done it, that it cannot be done. It is forever written in the history books. 

[Vacamion]

16 hours ago, foxfanazer said:

My daughter was born the year of the league win and my son the year of the fa cup win so it really was a magical time for me.

 

Have you considered fathering more offspring?

 

It seems to do the trick.

 

 

[Phil Mitchell]

Genuinely felt during the covid break that we could struggle once the team we had at the time all moved on, but not to these heights.

 

Not sure why I felt it because at the time we were sat third (8pts clear of fifth) before the restart. But I 100% saw it coming to some degree. Sometimes feel like I brought it into the atmosphere and piss myself off just thinking about it.

 

Phil

[Heathrow fox]

15 hours ago, CosbehFox said:

Not really. 

 

It's just sadly followed the same way that many other 'provinicial' champions did. Kaiserslautern, Montpellier, Verona, Deportivo. 

 

We had the chance to be more Leverkusen, Atalanta, Villarreal given the financial benefits of the PL. Those four listed above didn't have that comfort. 

The finanicial advantage can be a bit of a two way street.Makes the stakes so much higher.The teams you mention don’t have so much competition either.

[filbertway]

13 minutes ago, Heathrow fox said:

The finanicial advantage can be a bit of a two way street.Makes the stakes so much higher.The teams you mention don’t have so much competition either.

Almost reads like Rudkin was unfortunate to have 150m a year to spend on wages. (When we went down I think it was 180m, that may have been the season before though)

[Sly]

We haven’t tainted it.

 

It is still the greatest “Did that really happen” in football history in my opinion.

 

I feel like we are in that same spiral that Leeds hit from the Peter Risdale years, where they went from
Champions League Semi Finalist, to League 1 within 6 years. 
 

If you look at the likes of what fans of clubs like Deportivo, Parma, Schalke and Hamburg have been through, then it’s all very similar. If you take our title win out of the equation, as we’ve got the joint worst title defence of all time in terms of points drop off the following season, our falloff isn’t that significant. 
 

If we fall to League 1 though, it would the quickest falloff of any former Premier League Champions hitting League 1. We’d be the football equivalent of someone like Woolworths or Blockbuster at this point, as it would just continue to unravel at speed I think. 

 

Ultimately, football is a brutal business, for someone to grow, it comes at the expense of someone else’s behest. Crazy to think we’ve been surpassed by Brighton, Brentford, Bournemouth, Burnley etc

 

Then again, the Championship is littered with clubs that have fallen from the Premier League. 
 

I think it’s something like 19 of the 24 have played in it since it started. 

[foxfanazer]

7 hours ago, Vacamion said:

 

Have you considered fathering more offspring?

 

It seems to do the trick.

 

 

I'll wait until we're in the Johnstone's paint trophy (or whatever it's called now) until we have another 

[willie-bell-in-rothley]

Only 7 clubs names on the trophy, ill take that.

[murphy]

Not a chance.  That success is in the bank forever.

 

I genuinely thought we were going to be relegated in 2017 though and that would have tainted it to an extent because we would have become a laughing stock and a future pub quiz question as relegated champions.

 

Our demise since has been so rapid, so shambolic and so utterly avoidable that I feel cheated out of what might have been and what should have been.  It feels las if we our paying the price for our success now.  The title win so unlikely that it was created with some kind of Faustian pact and the debt is now being called in.  Or as if Wes Morgan had a painting in the attic slowly turning into Wout Faes.

[LCFCJohn]

I think people have interpreted the question differently.

 

Most have said no and have interpreted it as whether the title and cup mean less which of course they don’t. Particularly the title win was a massive underdog story and was done fairly. The cup was a lesser degree as the squad we had was up there at that point but still a huge achievement to put our name on it for the first time.

 

I did reply that yes, I feel it has been tainted. But that is because I interpreted the question in a way I have thought at what cost. I wouldn’t want us to have not managed the achievements. That would be downright bizarre. I also don’t think the achievements mean less.

 

But at what cost? It feels like since the cup win particularly, we have lost our football club. It’s not the club I knew and loved.

 

Obviously the argument there is that’s not to do with the achievements themselves but the loss of Vichai. I’m not sure personally. I think he was a decent guy and loved the club. But we can see how fragile now it was all built upon.

 

Hopefully we will become that club again and the achievements will be banked in history. But right now it feels that the club I knew is dead.

[NZ_Foxile]

I saw a supporter of another club comment on a post about our title win, claiming we only won it by cheating. They were basically linking the PSR charges to our Premier League and cup wins, and saying that we achieved them by overspending 🙄

So the mismanagement that has happened since, may have tainted our win in some ill-informed people’s eyes. 

[Fox92]

22 hours ago, Jazzy_Jeff said:

Nothing will ever taint what we have done. It’s not an understatement to say that what we did has never been done before and will never been seen again. Completely unique.

 

We are in this position now due to Vichai’s passing and our club being unable to understand and work within the PSR restrictions. 
 

Once we have someone capable running the show and rules that are fit for purpose we’ll be back. 

We also made questionable decisions when he was alive. 

[LCFCJohn]

43 minutes ago, NZ_Foxile said:

I saw a supporter of another club comment on a post about our title win, claiming we only won it by cheating. They were basically linking the PSR charges to our Premier League and cup wins, and saying that we achieved them by overspending 🙄

So the mismanagement that has happened since, may have tainted our win in some ill-informed people’s eyes. 

Yep. Same as when people said the same about our promotion back in 2014.

 

But at the time, we had spent a lot under Sven and failed. By the time we were promoted, Pearson and his team had massively brought costs down. We then won the league with a low cost squad.

 

Even after that, the FA cup and European qualifications were achieved with minimal net spend due to big sales and the wages hadn’t shot up at that point.

 

Actually, it is when we let spending get out of control that we fail completely. 2010-12 time and again in the past few years.

 

Nobody could claim we overspend to gain an advantage as we have done the opposite twice in the past 15 years whilst our achievements have come through low spend.

[Shev]

Wycombe fan here. In my neutral opinion, no, no, a thousand times no! "Doing a Leicester" has entered the vernacular for any kind of underdog triumph, even outside of sports. What you achieved went far beyond the boundaries and borders of your club. Even those 5th place finishes, though gutting for you (as you should have made the CL both years) were a higher watermark than "amazingly run" clubs such as Brighton, Brentford, Bournemouth, Palace etc. have managed. To even continue to be that good when you were at a huge revenue disadvantage was stunning.

 

In a way it is not surprising (from an outside point of view) that things have ended up here, especially given the tragic death of your owner. To achieve the impossible, then stay up there, then follow it up eventually with a Cup win (not to mention CL quarters), is the highest heights, and something fans of all lower league clubs could only dream of. But football is not set up to allow anyone to sustain that unless they are a revenue-producing megaclub, and in a sense, the only way was inevitably downward, with the added kicker of such incredible memories against the backdrop of a more drab current reality.

 

The thought of any of you lot feeling like what you did is tainted is genuinely tragic. That league win was absolutely inspirational - I don't think I have ever been so happy as a neutral over something happening in sports. It was gravity-defying, insane, surreal, through-the-looking glass stuff. Maybe you are paying for it now as a fanbase, having peaked to heights you will probably never get back to, but what a peak! What heights! What a crazy, romantic, brilliant story!

 

 

 

[Mickyblueeyes]

Not tainted it. Thrown it away ? Yes, absolutely. The media coverage, international recognition etc. that went with it, it doesn’t happen often. Even if we managed to go back up and stay there, not a chance we get anywhere near to what we had previously. We were in discussions about being the top 6 becoming the top 7. That will never come back. Well never in my lifetime. Thats unforgivable. 

 

To get a manager who “gets us” like Pearson. The strategic choice led by an inspirational scout to sign multiple world class players (Mahrez, Kante, Vardy but also, on their day, Tielemans, Maddison, Ndidi, Maguire, Maddison Riccy P) and have a selection of young players with the great potential (which we are seeing now for other clubs), Barnes, Chilwell, KDH. Ranieri and his calmness that season. Puel being the wrong but perfect fit for so many reasons. Having a driven owner like Vichai. 
 

To stay up in the PL is one thing - incredibly difficult. To obtain mid table is even harder. To push on beyond that, unthinkable. Palace have been trying for years. Brighton, very much the same. They are both good PL clubs, good players - neither broke the top 6 like us. You don’t how good something is until it’s gone. 
 

Things like that don’t happen to clubs every day. 
 

I never expected to stay there but Top’s blatant disregard for his father’s hard work was unthinkable. He is a disgrace and disgrace who won’t learn - he’s shown that at KP. He’s shown that here. Vichai deserved better and hope his other children hold him in higher regard and the work he did for them. It’s just unfortunate the one he trusted had little care for it all.
 

So no, it’s not tainted. It will always be there. It will always be called doing a Leicester. We’ve inspired multiple clubs. 
 

The problem is, those who were given it as a gift. Top, Rudkin etc. threw it away. Threw the work away and we will go into the darkness and will be the yo-yo club (if we are lucky) we always were at the best. However, for fans of this generation, that period will be the biggest “what if” this club will have for centuries. 
 

 

[CosbehFox]

17 hours ago, Heathrow fox said:

The finanicial advantage can be a bit of a two way street.Makes the stakes so much higher.The teams you mention don’t have so much competition either.

I wouldn’t disagree. Yet those three clubs have all had off seasons occasionally yet it’s never been quite as catastrophic as us 

[Dahnsouff]

Only just seen this thread. Good lord no. Our conscience and joy should be completely unimpeded by recent failures. 

[Kitchandro]

2 hours ago, Shev said:

Wycombe fan here. In my neutral opinion, no, no, a thousand times no! "Doing a Leicester" has entered the vernacular for any kind of underdog triumph, even outside of sports. What you achieved went far beyond the boundaries and borders of your club. Even those 5th place finishes, though gutting for you (as you should have made the CL both years) were a higher watermark than "amazingly run" clubs such as Brighton, Brentford, Bournemouth, Palace etc. have managed. To even continue to be that good when you were at a huge revenue disadvantage was stunning.

 

In a way it is not surprising (from an outside point of view) that things have ended up here, especially given the tragic death of your owner. To achieve the impossible, then stay up there, then follow it up eventually with a Cup win (not to mention CL quarters), is the highest heights, and something fans of all lower league clubs could only dream of. But football is not set up to allow anyone to sustain that unless they are a revenue-producing megaclub, and in a sense, the only way was inevitably downward, with the added kicker of such incredible memories against the backdrop of a more drab current reality.

 

The thought of any of you lot feeling like what you did is tainted is genuinely tragic. That league win was absolutely inspirational - I don't think I have ever been so happy as a neutral over something happening in sports. It was gravity-defying, insane, surreal, through-the-looking glass stuff. Maybe you are paying for it now as a fanbase, having peaked to heights you will probably never get back to, but what a peak! What heights! What a crazy, romantic, brilliant story!

 

 

 

 

The thing that this post reminded me of, being written by an outsider, is how it should have been a turning point in football and it wasn’t. My belief was that our success should have meant that no manager could ever again say to a group of supporters that their needed to play negative football to compete, and that the only expectation was survival. Allardyce, McCarthy, Pulis - they’d all been proved wrong.

 

All football fans should have had renewed pride in their club and the sport, because they had a right to believe these things were possible and that entertainment, at the very least, was not determined by finances.

 

Within a couple of years, the club that inspired that teared it all down. We let successive managers (Puel and Rodgers) tell us those very things. Our pathetic fans and board clapped along while they told us to be grateful, that we couldn’t compete with Wolves, that when they turned up we were happy just to survive. That’s the thing that annoys me most of all. We let these rich guys tell us what to accept again, rather than the other way round. That’s why the club is dead.

Edited 3 December 2025 by Kitchandro

[DoveValleyFox]

No, not at all. The world (literally) was surprised, and in the main delighted with our becoming English Premier League champions. Many were surprised but not so much delighted with our FA Cup win. 

 

The world is not as surprised that we have dropped back to being a yo-yo club again. They are probably disappointed rather than thinking that the success is tainted.

 

[Philkeavo]

It will never be tainted but it has sadly dissolved away. 

[MonkeyTennis?]

Sort of.

 

As a supporter, the PL and FA Cup wins stand as amazing accomplishments, and no-one can take them away from us. They're not tainted.

 

But those moments could have meant that we were on our way to establishing ourselves as a bigger presence in UK football. There was an opportunity to grow the fanbase, improve the stadium, work with bigger and better commercial partners, etc. None of these were guaranteed and in some ways they might be considered distractions, but they matter commercially, they matter for the city, they matter for the future of the club. Frankly, they matter for the pride of the fanbase too. Instead, due to unbelievable mismanagement in my opinion, we have returned to being a small club that had a brief period of good fortune, before retreating back to the lower leagues, BC Game, financial mismanagement, dreadful scouting etc. That doesn't detract from our successes, but its also a shame.