This weekend, Leicester City lavishly celebrated winning the Championship. The Foxes were celebrating at King Power Stadium despite losing 2-0 to Blackburn Rovers, and the celebrations carried over into the City Center.
Thousands of fans flocked to Leicester’s downtown to celebrate with the team, and Khun Top even made his first public appearance in what seemed like an eternity.
Following the poignant sequences in LE2 on Saturday, Jamie Vardy and Marc Albrighton’s humorous moments made the march more pleasurable. Reporters from LeicestershireLive were present in the City Center, and they have examined some of the more noteworthy and perhaps overlooked occurrences.
Jamie Vardy’s daughter
One of the most memorable moments from the parade was when Jamie Vardy called for quiet in the crowd below after the squad had made their way onto the balcony at the clock tower. Holding his four-year-old daughter, Olivia, Vardy asked her to do “Rock, paper scissors,” she duly obliged enthusiastically saying into the microphone “Rock, paper, scissors, **** off.” The moment prompted laughter and cheers from the crowd below.
Vardy then reacted by highlighting how alike his daughter is to himself while laughing.
Top’s message
It’s not very often that City fans get to hear directly from club chairman Aiyawatt ‘Top’ Srivaddhanaprabha, but the chairman was given the microphone while on the balcony with the squad. He used the opportunity to send a message to fans. Here’s what he had to say:
“I want to say thank you so much, this is amazing. We’ve been through a lot of pain last year, I know how you feel but today we celebrate, we’re back to the Premier League where we belong!
“Thank you so much for sticking with us, keep pushing the team and we will make you proud, thank you so much.”
Callum Doyle loving life
Just as the players were making their way off the balcony, it seemed that Man City loanee Callum Doyle was wanting to take in the atmosphere for just a bit longer. As the crowd sang along to the music playing, Doyle was there joining in and dancing along with the fans.
The defender is due to return to Manchester City in the summer, but has impressed in his time with City – if the club are able to make a move for the deal to become permanent is still to be seen.
At the start of the season, Coventry fans sang – “Callum Doyle, it could have been you”. He seemed pretty happy that he decided to make the switch to Leicester.
Marc Albrighton plea
The chant of ’10 more years’ Jamie Vardy is one that has been doing the rounds for the last few months, given his contract situation. But it was Vardy himself who started the same plea for fellow club legend Marc Albrighton.
The winger is expected to leave the club in the summer at the end of his contract – but he did remain coy when asked what the future holds. Vardy then took the opportunity to grab the microphone and sing ’10 more years, 10 more years Marc Albrighton’ with the crowd joining in.
Vardy himself also remained coy on his own future, although reports suggest that he could sign a new one-year contract with the club in the summer.
Wantaway stars clear
When the players did eventually arrive at Clock Tower, all the players were spotted at the front of the balcony soaking the atmosphere. Some (Vardy and Albrighton) communicated with the fans while others just took it in.
However, two players in particular seemed to hide away from the team celebrations. Dennis Praet and Harry Souttar, two individuals who are expected to depart in the summer, seemed to stand away from the rest of their teammates.
Praet did eventually move into the main group of players but Souttar spent the majority of his time alongside one of the members of staff. If body language is anything to go by, the central defender isn’t set to be part of Leicester’s squad next year.
EFL feelings clear
At the King Power Stadium on Saturday, the trophy lift will live long in the memory of supporters and all. However, during the introduction of the players and staff, there was a brief period of boos that rang around the stadium when representatives of the EFL appeared.
Chairman Rick Parry and Chief Executive Trevor Birch both entered the pitch to hand out the medals to the players but they didn’t receive a good reception. In April, Birch wrote to the Premier League asking them to fast track Leicester’s FFP case so the EFL could give them a points deduction – it didn’t work.
Leicester fans made their feelings known with boo’s around the King Power Stadium.
Iheanacho hint
Alongside Vardy, Albrighton and Praet, Kelechi Iheanacho is also expected to leave the club on a free transfer at the end of June when his contract expires.
The striker has scored six goals and assisted three in 26 games this season (12 starts) and has been the fourth-choice striker under Maresca for large portions of the season. He hasn’t confirmed whether he’s leaving or not but his t-shirt during the celebrations on Saturday may have confirmed it.
While others wore the Leicester City home shirt, Iheanacho had a white top on that read: “We’ve got history, when I’m gone, you gonna miss me.”
Now this is an interesting one. After City lifted the title in the middle of the pitch, they headed straight to the Kop Stand to celebrate in front of the loudest section of the stadium.
After posing for pictures and dancing along to their version of ‘Freed from Desire’, they made their way to the corner where Union FS and standing section is where the majority of them spend well over half an hour with the trophy.
Throughout the season, Maresca has opted to push his players to go over to the fans in that section after games and it was quite telling that they celebrated in front of the same fans at the end.
