Disco 2000: When Leicester City won at Chelsea

A future Leicester City great was on the verge of joining Chelsea as manager in September 2000.

However, the victor that day was one of our club’s least successful managers.

At their twentieth attempt in August 1960, Leicester City defeated Chelsea on the road for the first time.

That team featured Jimmy Greaves, Terry Venables, and Peter Bonetti.

This began a run of victories at Stamford Bridge that also includes 1961’s 3-1 triumph and October 1965’s 2-0 triumph, the latter of which was rather sweet revenge for the previous year’s loss in the League Cup final thanks to goals from John Sjoberg and Derek Dougan.

In the league, Leicester’s record at Stamford Bridge during the 1960s is a dismal 2-2.

In 2018, James Maddison released Jamie Vardy from the Blues’ defense, evoking the famous cries of joy from the away section of the stadium in front of London skyline.

The September 2000 Leicester win at Stamford Bridge was, however, possibly their most remarkable.

On one side of the story, we had fuel shortages and the ensuing panic buying at gas stations around the nation; on the other, we had the Sydney Olympics and the rise of a phenomenal 17-year-old Australian swimmer called Ian Thorpe.

At that period, this was the appearance of London’s streets:

Even though second-place Leicester were unfairly criticized, the spotlight was mercilessly shone on Chelsea’s shortcomings.

Peter Taylor’s side are everything Chelsea are not: cohesive, unglamorous, more than the sum of their parts and proudly British (all of Taylor’s 16-strong party were born in Britain).

Few teams preserve leads better than Leicester’s cohesive bunch.

Defending from the front, Darren Eadie and Ade Akinbiyi both tracked back with excellent devotion, while Izzet continued snapping into tackles in midfield, including one of excessive force on Dennis Wise that had the two squaring up to each other.

If Chelsea’s overpriced and underachieving stars were seeking to impress their new head coach yesterday, they blew the audition in dramatic fashion.

As theatrical shows go, this West Side Story was part-farce, part-tragedy and comfortably capable of being transplanted from West London to the West End.

On the dismal evidence of a 2-0 defeat which saw Chelsea drop to 17th, Claudio Ranieri cannot start soon enough.”

The Chelsea team had been picked by Ray Wilkins, who managed the side that day alongside Graham Rix.

Wilkins added afterwards: “Mr Ranieri certainly wouldn’t have been satisfied with a lot of things that happened out there today.”

The BBC’s match coverage opened with the line: “Chelsea fans chanted Gianluca Vialli’s name after watching their team get comprehensively beaten by Leicester at Stamford Bridge.”

But there was soon another Italian whose name the Chelsea faithful sang.

This would be the first of only 3 home Premier League defeats all season as Ranieri stabilized the ship.

Meanwhile, Leicester sank. Waking up as a Foxes supporter on 4th March 2001 after a 2-0 win had pulled City level on points with their opponents, 4th-placed Liverpool, things didn’t look too awful.

But Leicester lost their next eight league games and sank like a stone down the standings.

It was the start of a long-term slump that was only really reversed with the arrival of Nigel Pearson, who put the foundations in place for Mr Ranieri to arrive at another squad in blue.