“When you’re smiling, the whole world smiles with you.”



It is a fitting anthem for Leicester City, a song about keeping a brave face in times of adversity, because through the club’s history there haven’t been too many occasions for true celebration.



Aside from a few League Cup triumphs and the odd promotion (and even those joys stemmed from the pain of relegation), there wasn’t too much to sing about — until 2010, when Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha (then Vichai Raksriaksorn, his name until he was bestowed an honorary title by the king of Thailand two years later) took over the club.



The club was still recovering from financial near-ruin eight years before and, in 2008, relegation to the third tier of English football for the first time in its history. As a result, there was plenty of scepticism, and even fear, surrounding the arrival of the unknown Khun Vichai and his company King Power.



Those concerns were...