When Everton’s visit to Leicester City prompted the greatest celebration
An evening early in May on Filbert Way. Everton the visitors. Emotions running high. We’ve been here before, haven’t we?
This is an excerpt from The Unbelievables: The Remarkable Rise of Leicester City.
You wake up.
Today's the day.
Too early.
Today's the day.
Too excited.
Today's the day.
Today's the day you see the captain of your football club lift the Premier League trophy.
You had planned a time to set off. You bring it forward a bit. You've got to be there. Maybe being there will help it to sink in. But probably not.
Along the way you see blue and white flags and scarves hanging from windows and suspended from buildings, growing in number as you get closer as though they're guiding you in.
And then, there it is. The home of the champions. The traffic slows to a crawl. Everyone wants to see this. There are still six and a half hours until kick off but the stadium looks like it normally does just before a match. The queue for the club shop snakes out of the door and winds its way through the crowds.
You drive on, you park up and you grin at the complete stranger parking his car next to yours. He grins back. No reason, other than: we are the champions of England. You and him and tens of thousands of people who never dreamt this could happen: we are the champions of England.
You walk to the pub. You've made this journey hundreds of times before but never like this. Never surrounded by people who haven't even got tickets but just want to be a part of it. There are so many Italians - you see the shirts and scarves of Roma, Napoli, Fiorentina, Catania, Pontevedra. They love Claudio. They love Leicester.
There are three City fans dressed as giant pizza slices heading in the direction of a group of Italians. It looks like a Japanese game show.
The pub is empty. Everyone is outside enjoying the first bright heat of summer. You meet friends and family. Since you last met these people, you all became champions. You smile and shake your head in disbelief. They do the same.
You set off for the ground. The chancers are out in force selling T-shirts: 'The Peoples Champions'. You tut at the missing apostrophes and walk on.
Thousands of people have gathered outside the stadium. This has never happened before. It's beautifully spontaneous. People just needing to be here. There are still three hours until kick off.
You see more friends. You swap stories of where you were when the league was won. What you did. How it felt. You walk through the crowds together.
Coaches arrive, mostly seeming to carry Thai schoolchildren. You roar them in as though they contain your team. One of them actually does contain the other team. Who are we playing again?
It doesn't matter any more. It happened. This could have been a hard luck story or a nearly men story but it's not because it happened. We actually did it.
Rain begins to fall. Time to head inside. You're clutching the same card you've been carrying in your wallet all season: the one that allows entry to the home of Leicester City. Over the past few months that card has turned into a badge of pride. Today it feels like the most coveted item in England. People are paying more for a single ticket to this match than you paid to see all nineteen home league games.
You're one of the lucky ones. You hold the card up to the reader, the light turns green and you're in. The concourse is full of songs and blue smoke bombs. You take a deep breath and push through the clouds and the crowds.
You climb the steps out of the concourse to gaze at the pitch. The ground staff have cut a tartan pattern into the turf. Everybody is rising to the occasion. It looks sensational, ready for the first home game of the season rather than the last.
It is the last though. Alan Birchenall, club ambassador and pre-match rabble rouser, is running round the pitch for charity as he has done at the last home game of the season for the past thirty-six years. This is usually the main event. Not today.
With half an hour to go until kick off, Claudio Ranieri leads the world-renowned opera singer Andrea Bocelli onto the pitch and the music strikes up: Nessun Dorma, the anthem of Italia '90.
There was a boy who turned six years old six days after the World Cup final in 1990. He had only just fallen in love with Leicester City. Football terrified him at Notts County a few months later. He had no idea that one day, football would also make him feel like this: like he was put on earth to live these moments.
As he waves his flag; as he looks up at the plane circling above, pulling a banner referencing a league win rather than demanding the departure of a manager or chairman; as Bocelli brings Nessun Dorma to its magnificent crescendo: he thinks to himself, it feels like I am about to die. It feels like this is a film and the script comes to a close at this exact moment.
Not in a bad way.
In the best way possible.
It feels like this is it.
