What I experienced throughout this fairytale season (2)

The first big hurdle

December comes the first tough fixture period: 14/12 CHE, 19/12 EVE, 26/12 LIV, 29/12 MNC, the first point where people expected us to crumble. I would have been more than happy had we got 3-4 points out of these 4 games. It turned out we got 7!

Before the Chelsea game I was so praying them not to sack Jose Mourinho before it. Fortunately they didn't, and our win proved to be Jose's last game at Chelsea.

We were then top of table, 2 points clear. It was also at this point that Gary Lineker made his infamous tweet. He didn't know that, but it seems HKGolden's 賭 J is very powerful indeed...

And after beating Everton, we are guaranteed top of the table at Christmas. A fan phoned-in to a radio programme and said:

"My son turned to me and looked me in the eye and said: 'Dad, dad, amazing, absolutely amazing.'

Then a series of lacklustre result follows, including a 0-2 defeat to Liverpool, clinging on to a 0-0 draw with Man City, yet another goalless draw with Bournemouth, and even a 1-1 draw with Villa (!). But this slump still left us in a position better than people had expected. In this period Vardy had a surgery, and I suspect the transfer window must also have caused some instability as well. But somehow we were still near or at the top of the table - still quietly.

The second big hurdle

We had three big matches in February: 2/2 LIV,  6/2 MNC, 14/2 ARS.

I was very pleased to see us lose out in the FA cup replay. Had we won that, we would have a 5th round FA cup match a few days before the LIV match. As it turned out, we had 10 days rest, while LIV played 4 matches in 10 days (or something like that). We then beat LIV 2-0, thanks to a wonder goal from Vardy.

At this point the neutral fans all begin to root for us. Like this one
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/35497832

6/2 MCI 1-3 LEI
This was the day history will remember; the day when the rest of the world suddenly realises that it might actually happen. Not just because of the successive wins, but because of the manner in which we dispatch away these opponents so convincingly. There were articles pondering (still joking) what might happen if this miracle, just for once, did happen. Gary Lineker wrote a moving article, describing it as "quite possibly the most unlikely triumph in the history of team sport", and that he has never "wanted something to happen more in sport in my entire life."

But for us it was the start of the agony. It was the point where we started to fear, that this might turn from the greatest miracle in sporting history to the biggest flop in sporting history.

As it turned out, it was just like 2 seasons ago when we were promoted to the Premier League: flying under the radar for half of the season, and by the time the rest of the world realised, it was already too late to catch us.


Next time: the home straight...