Wilde at heart over the Foxes

Fan's Eye View: No 150: Leicester City

In this era of "football as fashion accessory", we have become accustomed to media and arts personalities who profess their allegiance to football.

Bragg and Arsenal (or is it Carlisle this week?), Mellor and Chelsea, Pinter and Spurs. Julian Barnes even created a novelistic and novel fictional FA Cup victory for his own Leicester City. But my researches have confirmed that connections between football and cultural icons stretch back at least 100 years. For I have proof that Leicester City (or, as they were then known, Leicester Fosse) once figured prominently in the affections of one Oscar Wilde.

The evidence is there for all who have eyes to see. References to his love for football and his fanaticism for Leicester are scattered throughout his work. My suspicions were first aroused on coming across this typical Wildeism: "There is something vulgar in all success; the greatest clubs fail, or seem to have failed". In these lines Oscar demonstrated that he understood a truth universally acknowledged among Leicester City fans - that it is easy to support Manchester United or Rangers - easy but shallow. One only grows as a football fan through the experience of failure - and there have been myriad opportunities for such growth for the Filbert Street faithful. So many relegation seasons, so many glorious Wembley failures. And here lies the deeper truth so perceptively drawn out by Oscar, that we seem to have failed.

Only seem, because every relegation season is followed by promotion, as surely as transfer to the likes of Arsenal or Spurs follows for any City striker who achieves 20 goals in a season. Far, far better those bittersweet yo-yo experiences than endless mid-table mediocrity.

Any lingering doubts regarding Oscar's true footballing sympathies have to be dispelled by his known abhorrence of fox-hunting: "The unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable." This is the inevitable consequence of his passion for Leicester City (the Foxes) and, particularly, his love for our cuddly mascot, Filbert the Fox.

Oscar was also well aware of the perfidy and duplicity of football club managers. "The Picture of Dorian Gray" is his thinly disguised allegory of the manager with two faces: one face turned to the fans, swears eternal loyalty; the other, the face in the mirror, is already talking contractual terms with the chairman of Wolves or Villa.

Like all true fans, Oscar mistrusted managers and coaches. Remember his famous aphorism "Those who can, play football; those who can't, coach. Those who can't coach, manage!" Still, he knew a good manager when he saw one. "The Importance of Being Earnest", which was first performed in 1895, was written in tribute to Ernest Marson, manager of Leicester Fosse from 1892 to 1894 and much admired by Wilde for being the first man to introduce the sweeper to the English game.

Oscar was ahead of his time. He was famous for shirt-lifting whenever he scored long before this practice became de rigueur for Premier League strikers. And anyone still doubting the veracity of Oscar's "Blue Army" membership should be reminded of his penchant for collecting blue and white pottery. Leicester City coffee mugs, obviously! Up the City!