STOCKPORT, England -- Happy anniversaries have been in short supply for Leicester City, and even when they win, the dark clouds continue to hover above a team that, just a decade ago, achieved the remarkable feat of winning the Premier League as a 5,000-1 underdog.
If you want the epitome of a club that climbs high and falls even further, none can quite compare to Leicester.
Ten years ago on Monday, the Foxes made their Champions League debut with a 3-0 win against Brugge in Belgium, but now they are languishing in the third tier, the EFL League One, and find themselves closer to a third successive relegation than promotion. A 4-3 victory away to Stockport County ensured that Leicester climbed from the club's lowest-ever league position -- 19th in the third division of England football -- into mid-table, but having led 4-1, the defensive collapse prompted the Leicester supporters to turn on the team's manager for the second successive game, chanting "Russell Martin, your football is s---!"
Leicester held on to win, but not even Martin is prepared to predict whether it is a corner turned or merely a brief respite from the team's difficult slide.
"The win was everything," Martin said. "It was everything to win today. I'm really proud of my players because, after last week [a 4-0 defeat at home to Oxford United], so much criticism has been thrown at everyone. The more we win, the more it will hopefully build trust, but it's not going to be perfect yet."
Leicester's story is a cautionary tale for any club with ambitions of competing with, and beating, the biggest clubs in the Premier League.
When they won the Premier League in 2016, Claudio Ranieri's team finished 124 places higher than Stockport -- then a sixth-tier team in the semi-professional Conference North -- in the football pyramid, but the fortunes of football teams can change quickly and Leicester are now in a state of uncertainty, at the lowest ebb in their 142-year history and with the club's Thai owners, the Srivaddhanaprabha family, ready to sell up for offers in excess of £200 million.
Citbank have been instructed to find a buyer, with Monday set as a deadline for interested parties to confirm an offer. Neil Lal, a Scottish-Indian businessman, has gone public with his attempt to buy the club and just like most new arrivals at any team, he has a five-year plan.
"The five-year plan is to be successful, to get Leicester out of League One, in the Championship and get back to the Premier League," Lal told Talksport. "We're not going to throw the kitchen sink at this, it's not financially viable. And for me to come and tell you, or the fans, that we're going to put plenty of money in -- yes, capital will be introduced.
"However, we've got to be realistic. The club is in debt and there's a huge wage bill."
Lal doesn't sound like a wealthy benefactor and Martin, who was fired by Rangers last season after just 17 games in charge, is a manager yet to win over the club's long-suffering supporters, who saw three different managers come and go last season.
Martin's purist style of football, founded upon an uncompromising passing game, earned Southampton promotion to the Premier League in 2024, but he was fired halfway through the following season after refusing to compromise his principles and the same happened at Rangers. With Leicester fans already turning their frustrations onto the 40-year-old, Martin said this week that the criticism had become "personal."
"I think it's become really, really personal from some guys in the media and definitely from fans," Martin said. "So it is what it is and I have to deal with it, but I guess when you try and do something a bit different to some, then it's always there to be shot at.
"I think the only thing that will please people is when we start winning games, which we will," Martin said. "I'm not going to sit up here and defend myself because all people want to see is to win."
Ten years ago, Leicester made it all the way to the Champions League quarterfinals before being eliminated by Atletico Madrid and as recently as 2022, a year after winning the FA Cup, the club played -- and lost -- a Europa League semifinal against AS Roma. Perhaps Ranieri's players set an impossible standard for future teams to meet, but when supporters have tasted champagne, they rarely want to go back to the cheaper stuff.
Leicester and their fans are having to accept the reality of their new status, and Martin said it is time for a reset and patience to be afforded to him.
"I think I've been brought in to have some time to build something because the club has found itself in League One for whatever reason," Martin said. "It's had a lot of managers over the last two years, but people in life want change and they want it really quickly, in football, in life, in politics.
"In this modern day of social media, all of that stuff is difficult, but the support I have had from the club this week has been amazing and if we get time, I think we'll be successful."
For that, Martin and Leicester need to keep on winning. And there are no Champions League trips to Bruges to look forward to this week -- just a game at Barnsley instead next Saturday.
