In 1983, Jack Kemp famously rushed to the floor of the U.S. House to condemn soccer as a “European socialist” sport. Lawmakers were then trying to help America host the 1986 World Cup, and the country finally did in 1994. Yet owing in part to this denunciation from the influential congressman and onetime Buffalo Bills quarterback, soccer’s reputation among conservatives—and Americans, in general—has never quite recovered.
But it would be unfortunate if Americans ignored the incredible story of Leicester City. The Foxes, who recently clinched England’s prestigious Premier League soccer title, barely qualified for the top league before the start of this season. In fact, they were rated by British bookies as a 5,000-to-1 shot to win the title—which, according to ESPN, apparently makes Leicester’s championship “the biggest upset in sports history.” (This, of course, means that some lucky Leicester fans and other gamblers got very rich.) Leicester also triumphed against Premier League giants with much pricier squads; the Foxes’ payroll was just about a quarter of last season’s title-winning team, Chelsea Football Club.
The Leicester miracle is not just about soccer, however. In a unique cultural moment, the city of Leicester hosted a grand reburial in March 2015 for King Richard III, whose remains were amazingly discovered just years earlier underneath a parking lot near the city’s Anglican cathedral (apparently deposited there by Franciscan friars after Richard’s defeat at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485). Despite Richard’s bloody legacy and accusations that he killed two young nephews in a power struggle for the throne, Leicester residents embraced the historical nature of the ceremony, using it as a chance to ask for God’s mercy on behalf of the king.
Leicester has also experienced an economic revival of sorts. Leicester was hit hard by the decline of textile manufacturing in the 1980s, but some jobs have returned as the city government pursued public-private partnerships, offered more apprenticeships for unemployed youth, enhanced welfare-to-work programs, and created “Business Investment Areas” (reminding one of Kemp’s “enterprise zones“). IBM announced in January 2015 that it would be opening a new services center in Leicester. And the city has been compared favorably with London in its ability to encourage small-business growth. Indeed, amid a general economic slowdown in Britain, Leicester is a bright spot. American communities also suffering from the loss of manufacturing jobs could learn a thing or two from this city across the Atlantic.
So, in the last few years, Leicester has witnessed perhaps the greatest sports upset ever, the comeback of a once forgotten and condemned king, and an economic revival fueled by business- and worker-friendly policies.
Even Jack Kemp might have cracked a smile.
Daniel Wiser is an assistant editor at National Affairs.
