An amazing thing has just happened in my city. Leicester City
Football Club has won the Premiership. Outside of the usual ‘big spenders’, Leicester
are only the second club to manage the impossible (Blackburn Rovers being the other
club in 1994/95).
They won it on team spirit, togetherness, courage and
determination. In the end, money can’t buy determination.
It’s worth looking at the financials here. The chart below, from the BBC,
shows how Leicester stacks up in terms of cost, against the biggest spending
club, Manchester City:
Yes, that’s right. Leicester has just won the Premiership
with a team valued at 7.5% of the ‘top’ club.
And that’s not all. Leicester City have also attained the
greatest financial ‘over achievement’ when measured against wages. Here’s the
proof courtesy of the Financial Times no less (via Pensions Playpen):
Much has already been written about this impossible success. And
I’m sure there will be more to follow. Cold finance says this achievement is
impossible. The dreamers at Leicester City say otherwise.
All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night
in the dusty recesses of their minds, wake in the day to find that it was
vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act on
their dreams with open eyes, to make them possible.
T. E. Lawrence
