When I was asked to write about a moment in football special to me, Leicester’s title win was the obvious, really the only, choice. Seven years on, and despite having since seen the club lift the FA Cup and the Community Shield and play Roma in a European semi-final, it’s still hard to comprehend what actually happened back in 2016. Every so often I delve into YouTube to watch the season’s highlights, or videos of fans celebrating, or the trophy parade just to make sure that it wasn’t a glitch in the Matrix, or that I hadn’t briefly tumbled through the multiverse and into an alternate reality.

During the season itself there was no way of checking, just a constant feeling of anticipation and dread before each game. Anticipation for the mad, thrilling, absurd journey to continue, but dread that the next game would be the one where the whole thing would come to juddering halt. The glitch fixed, reality kicking back in.

But that never happened. Instead, once Leicester went top in November following a 3-0 win at St James’ Park, the season developed an increasingly ethereal quality. It didn’t seem ridiculous to suggest that the team’s exploits were due to the monks from Bangkok’s Golden Buddha Temple, flown in by the club’s Thai owners to bless the players before each home game.

Nor did it seem absurd to think that it was all in some way connected to King Richard III, whose re-burial at Leicester Cathedral in March 2015 after his body had been found beneath a car park in the city directly coincided with the beginning of the team’s incredible run of form that began with the ‘great escape’ and then flourished into the title win.

In a sense, the whole season was a moment. A nine-month, all-consuming odyssey where the days between games merged, sometimes speeding past so quickly there was hardly any time to savour the last absurd expectation- defying victory, at others taking way to long, prolonging the nervous anticipation, the nagging sense that this couldn’t possibly last, could it…?

Of course, every Foxes fan will have their favourite moment, their cherished memory from the season, and there are certainly plenty from which to choose: “Claudio Ranieri? Really?”, pizzas for clean sheets, Jamie Vardy’s record- breaking goal against Manchester United, the players celebrating going top in Copenhagen dressed as superheroes, Kasper Schmeichel’s save against Spurs, Robert Huth’s header in the same game,

Vardy’s wonder goal against Liverpool, Mahrez’s impudent skip over Otamendi at the Etihad, Huth’s brace in the same game, “dilly ding, dilly dong”, the Leicester squad collectively losing their shit in Vardy’s kitchen after Eden Hazard handed them the title, the city-wide hangover the following day, Andrea Bocelli serenading the champions with “Nessun Dorma”…

However, for me it was the win against Norwich on February 27.

Thirteen days earlier, Leicester had lost to Arsenal at the Emirates, conceding a 95th-minute Danny Welbeck header having been reduced to ten men just after half-time. Although the Foxes remained top, Arsenal closed the gap between them to two points, drawing level with Spurs. For many, it felt decisive; the point at which Leicester’s momentum began to evaporate and the long-expected fall down the table began as the natural order was reasserted. The Arsenal players certainly seemed to think so; celebratory dressing-room selfies were the order of the day.

Leicester had taken six points from three games against Liverpool, Manchester City and Arsenal, the latter two away from home, and come very close to taking seven. The manager Claudio Ranieri gave the players a week off before their next game against Norwich at the King Power Stadium.

With a minute of that match left and the score goalless, it seemed like the break might not have been such a good idea. Leicester, who did not muster a shot on target until the 58th minute, looked decidedly unlike champions in waiting. They had toiled against a side that was sitting outside the relegation zone on goal difference only; a side that had conceded 21 goals in the seven games since they had last won; a side that won just twice away from home all season.

Anything but victory for Leicester would have opened the opportunity for Spurs and Arsenal, both playing the following day, to leapfrog them and knock them off top spot in the process. On 78 minutes, Claudio Ranieri threw on Leonardo Ulloa for Daniel Amartey. It was an attacking substitution – a striker for a right-back – and a gamble, the resulting switch to three at the back leaving the home side more exposed.

12 minutes later, the gamble paid off. Danny Drinkwater received the ball in his own half, turned Alex Tettey and found Riyad Mahrez in space. The Algerian drove forward, the Norwich defence, wary of his impish skill, backing away, before playing the ball to Marc Albrighton on his right. The winger delivered a perfect first-time ball low and hard across goal. It was just in front of the keeper John Ruddy. A slight touch from the lunging Jamie Vardy took the ball away from the Norwich centre-back Ryan Bennett and into the path of the onrushing Ulloa. The Argentinian slammed it home at the far post with his weaker left foot.

Cue pandemonium.

The resulting “sudden energy release” from the Leicester fans registered as a minor earth tremor with a magnitude of 0.3 on equipment set up by a group of University of Leicester geology students at a local primary school. It was labelled the ‘Vardy Quake’, which seemed a little unfair on Ulloa.

I was hundreds of miles away in my car listening on the radio. Such was my reaction – relief more than anything – that my young daughter, in the passenger seat, burst into tears. It probably wasn’t my finest hour as a parent, but it was the first time that I genuinely believed Leicester could go all the way.

Here was a team winning despite playing badly, exactly what champions do. Here was a performance that was the perfect embodiment of the club’s mantra “Foxes Never Quit”. Here was a squad working together; bit-part players (Ulloa, Okasaki, Dyer, Schlupp) not sulking, but making huge, season-altering contributions. Here was a fanbase at one with their team.

There was a little schadenfreude the following day when Arsenal lost to Manchester United (no selfies this time, eh, lads?) but then we drew our next game on the Tuesday night, 2-2 against Tony Pulis’s dogged West Brom. This surely was decisive; the point at which Leicester’s momentum began to evaporate and the long-expected fall down the table began as the natural order was reasserted.

However, what looked like two points dropped was actually a point gained as the other teams in the top four all lost their mid-week games. Leicester were now three points ahead of Spurs in second, six ahead of Arsenal in third and 10 ahead of fourth-placed Manchester City.

Ranieri’s team went on to win their next five games without conceding a goal. By the time Vardy bullied his way past Patrick van Aanholt to seal a 2-0 win against Sunderland at the end of that run, Leicester had opened up a 10-point gap on second-placed Spurs. At the final whistle at the Stadium of Light, there was another of those moments. As the travelling supporters lapped up the victory in the April sunshine, Ranieri went to salute them, tears welling in his eyes.

Spurs immediately won their game in hand to cut the gap, but this really did feel decisive. Champions League football had been guaranteed and Leicester needed just nine points from five games to win the title. The enormousness of what they were about to achieve was clear for all to see, no one more than Ranieri.

Leicester drew their next game at home against West Ham, Ulloa supplying yet another of those moments, his late goal, this one from the penalty spot deep into injury time after Vardy had been sent off for a second yellow, securing a point. Spurs won 4-0 away at Stoke the following day but it was a last hurrah for the North London club; they didn’t win any of their remaining four games. A fortnight later, after Tottenham squandered a 2-0 lead at Stamford Bridge, Leicester were crowned champions.

It was the moment that capped the season, that made the unbelievable real, but the one that distilled the season to its quintessence, was and will always be the goal that caused an earthquake.

Roger Domeneghetti is an author and freelance journalist. His second book Everybody Wants to Rule the World: Britain, Sport and the 1980s was published in May 2023. @RogerDom1