And Then I Shot, Shot, Shot A Hole Through Everything I Loved...



In a season like no other, it's been a day like no other: The first as the reigning champions of England. The reigning champions of England.
How's it been for you? Here's our composite version of an extraordinary day in the life of a Leicester City fan.

Wake up, late, with half a crisp cob stuck to the side of your face.

Wonder why you went to bed draped in a small kimono. You don't even own a kimono.

Struggle through a moment or two of Paul Merson-levels of thick-headed confusion.

Realise it's not a kimono, but a flag.

Hang on ... A flag you bought outside the ground late last night. The one that says Champions.

See daylight, like an express train racing from a tunnel. It happened. It actually happened.

Reach for your phone. Tweet: "So, it wasn't a dream #lcfc".

Scroll through hundreds of other tweets saying "so, it wasn't a dream #lcfc".

Sit up. Slump down again, knocked back by the sweetest hangover you will ever endure.

Get up and have breakfast. A fry-up, for both celebration and necessity.

Have a shower. Idly wonder, while stripping, if the Miracle of Leicester might also have worked its magic on your body, making you thinner/more muscley/bigger-breasted/hung-like-a-porn-star-whale ...

... Oh well.

Turn on breakfast TV. Watch a breathless report that features the words "fairytale" and "5000-1" plus an interview with a dishevelled, wild-haired passer-by, conducted to a symphony of car horns.

Switch over. Watch the exact same thing, with the same words, but in a slightly different order.

Switch over again. Ditto, but with Piers Morgan. Find, to your lasting surprise, that for once he doesn't make you want to punch a cushion.

Switch over. Repeat.

Catch a bus to town. Fight strange impulse to climb on the roof.

Open the gallery on your phone. Find several chaotic videos of pogoing feet in the pub, and a photo of you hugging a grinning stranger who looks like he might have chased you through the Haymarket when you were both 14.

Flick through your call log. Recall with a small burst of shame that you rang several London numbers at midnight, asking to be put though to Chas and/or Dave.

Open Twitter. Favourite every tweet made by a Leicester City player in the last 24 hours. Retweet a random oaf who'd predicted at the start of the season that we'd be relegated. Watch a compilation video of Claudio Ranieri's press conferences. Have a little sob.

Walk through the city, glowing like the Ready Brek kids, but with pride. Use your advanced chugger-avoiding skills, honed on countless dinner breaks in the city, to dodge roving packs of TV reporters who want to know if anyone can quite believe it.

Think: "I don't believe it".

Think: "I wonder if I've thought 'I don't believe it' more times in the last 12 hours than Richard Wilson has ever said it in his lifetime?'"

Think: "I may still be a bit drunk."

Roll up late to work, braced for middle-managerial peevishness. Find everyone is beaming like drunken chimps. Even the office misery. Notice your boss, who supported Manchester United earlier this season, has a Leicester City scarf draped over their computer. Sense you are immune.

Make tea, and a small shrine to Claudio Ranieri and Richard III.

Swap war stories from last night with your workmates.

Spend a full 25 minutes humming "we're all going on a European tour".

Answer the phone with the greeting "dilly ding, dilly dong?" Repeatedly.

Have a pointless work meeting. Don't listen to a single word, as you are otherwise engaged deciding precisely where Eden Hazard's equaliser would rank in the list of Leicester City's all-time greatest goals.

Go back to your desk. Google '+car +horn +knackered +repair +Leicester'.

Feel a fleeting urge to go on the Forest forum, but shrug it off. Realise for the first time ever, they mean as little to you as they insist we do to them.

Read this, even though you've read it before. Have a Ranieri-style trembly lip.

Be gripped by a fear you're going to wake up and find yourself in the double decker at Filbert Street, after nodding off during a dreary David Pleat-era goalless draw, having dreamed the entire last quarter of a century of Leicester's history.

Or that you've died.

Watch this.

Remind anyone who'll listen of that day you saw Andy King in Tesco.

Buy a subscription to The Fox.


Stare out of the window. Think of Vardy's volley against Liverpool. Of Schmeichel playing like a man possessed at Old Trafford. Of Mahrez dumping three Villa players on the ground with a single, dazzling turn. Of Okazaki's overhead kick against Newcastle. Of Huth's ballistic header against Spurs. Of Ulloa's last-gasp equaliser against West Ham. Of Kante's Mini. Of the Union FS tifos. Of the free booze from the owners. Of Ranieri's trembly lower lip...

...Have another little sob.



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