EFL Extra: Leicester City Special
The Game
The Times
3.2 • 1.5K Ratings
🗓️ 24 April 2026
⏱️ 25 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Where did it all go wrong?
Premier League winners ten years ago; only four years ago FA Cup holders, Community Shield winners; last four in europe competition and battling for top four in the league. What happened?
Times and Sunday Times writer Jonathan Northcroft wrote: 'Fearless - The Amazing Underdog Story of Leicester City, the Greatest Miracle in Sports History.'
In a special episode Jonathan joins Tom Clarke to discuss the plight and future of the former Champions? Will they bounce back or could it get even worse?
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to the game football podcast from The Times and Sunday Times. |
| 0:09.0 | This is our EFL extra show with me, Tom Clark, and today I'm joined by the Sunday Times Football |
| 0:14.0 | correspondent Jonathan Northcroft for a special show looking at the crisis at Leicester City. |
| 0:20.0 | Relegated to League 1 this week just one year on |
| 0:22.6 | from going down from the Premier League and 10 years on from that amazing Premier League title |
| 0:27.6 | triumph under Claudio Raniari. Johnny, you live in Leicester and you also wrote a brilliant book |
| 0:32.7 | about that title win in 2016. I've been pondering this a lot this week. You know, Luton, of course, suffered successive consecutive relegations from the Premier League and then the championship. They find themselves battling away in League 1 this season. But I don't know whether it's the anniversary of that title win or maybe the state of things at the club. You know, they've still got quite a lot of big-name players there. This feels a little bit bigger, doesn't it? Am I right in thinking that? Would you agree? |
| 0:58.6 | Absolutely, Tom. |
| 1:01.3 | Ten years on is such a symbolic sort of point in time. I don't think there's ever been a script |
| 1:10.3 | like Lester's to do what they did and then to fall like they have. |
| 1:14.8 | I was at the game on Tuesday night, which was so toxic and so flat and depressing in so many ways. |
| 1:21.4 | And I was standing with a couple of journalists in the mix zone, actually looking at the previous clubs who've dropped two |
| 1:28.3 | divisions from the Premier League all in one go and none of the names none of the examples are |
| 1:33.8 | anything like this none of them I think Blackburn did it as Premier League champions but |
| 1:40.0 | that was a different era um the thing about lester is it it's, yes, it's 10 years since The Miracle, but actually this |
| 1:47.0 | drop has been a very short and steep one because it's only four years ago that Leicester |
| 1:53.6 | were FA Cup holders in the last four in the European competition, had won the Community Shield and were battling |
| 2:02.4 | to get into the Champions League. |
| 2:03.6 | I haven't we finished six that year. |
| 2:04.8 | So it's only four years ago that they were in that position and it's been those three |
| 2:10.0 | relegations in four years, accruing players who are on, you know, sort of 100 grand a week, 90 grand a week, and still |
| 2:19.6 | dropping with the financial penalties they've suffered, the PSR problems they've had. |
... |
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