'If Leicester can do it...' - The triumph of little over large

Brian Carey likes to tell the story of an encounter a friend of his, a Manchester United supporter, once had with some Grimsby Town fans.

“I think it’s great how you can keep supporting a club like Grimsby,” his friend sympathetically informed the bemused Mariners. “I mean, you don’t ever win anything.”

For Carey, a former United player who went on to spend a good chunk his subsequent career in the lower leagues — now a respected coach, he’s currently between roles, as they say — the well-meant but entirely patronising comments of his friend summed up one of football’s narrowest mindsets.