The final scenes were unworthy of a great Premier League title race, and it is a pity that the image of Footballer of the Year Jamie Vardy stabbing an accusatory finger at a referee will linger, but these are details; overall it has been a season to remember, to cherish. Football will forever be the better for the engraving of the words “Leicester City” on English football’s most important trophy.
It would have been refreshing enough had Tottenham taken the title, for they have done more for the game this season than a few champion teams of the past.
Mauricio Pochettino’s management has been generally exemplary. He, as well as Claudio Ranieri, has brought dignity to a calling all too often associated with the sly tantrums of Jose Mourinho and Sir Alex Ferguson.
And now the task is to keep Spurs together. If Pochettino stays, they could win the title next season.
But then so could Newcastle; all they have to do is complete a Houdini act and then continue to follow the Leicester model of the past 14 months (I hope, incidentally, that amid the celebrations it will not be forgotten that Nigel Pearson built the machine that Ranieri has tuned.
The whole English game can look upwards now. People can stop worrying so much about relegation - Leicester have been relegated four times since 1992, even spending one season in the third tier - and instead be inspired.
Will it actually happen? Or will the English game regain its old shape, just as the Spanish did after Deportivo La Coruna won La Liga? In the 15 completed seasons since then, Real Madrid or Barcelona have finished top 13 times. Here, because television revenue is more wisely distributed, there is a chance of a genuine boost to competitiveness.
Five games that guided Leicester to the title
So what price Southampton next season? You certainly won’t be getting 5,000-1.
One further thought. Surely last night’s turbulence hammered the final nine nails - one for each yellow card - into the coffin of “game management”.
Forget decision-making; it’s the ethos of English refereeing that is misguided and the League, while rightly patting itself on the back, must ponder that.
Fortunately, the football’s good.
