Reuters: Leicester City’s Premier League title dream became reality on Monday when one of the greatest sporting fairytales reached its conclusion in west London where chasing Tottenham Hotspur were held 2-2 by Chelsea.

The result provoked an outpouring of celebration in the provincial English city and as far away as Thailand and Japan, while Leicester’s players had watched nervously on television along with Foxes fans packed into local bars 160km away.

Goals from Tottenham’s Harry Kane and Son Heung-min had looked like extending the title race to the penultimate week of what has been an unforgettable season.

But Gary Cahill gave Chelsea a lifeline before the hour and Eden Hazard, whose goals helped the Blues win the title last year, curled in a superb 83rd-minute equaliser to deflate Spurs and confirm Leicester as champions for the first time.

As tempers flared at the end of a red-hot London derby at Stamford Bridge, television pictures cut away to Leicester’s players celebrating in the living room of their striker Jamie Vardy, whose 22 goals have under-pinned his side’s challenge.

Elsewhere in Leicester, the city’s biggest ever party began in earnest, with hundreds of fans gathering outside the stadium and thousands more celebrating in pubs and bars.

Leicester’s unlikely journey from no-hopers to English champions has captivated sports fans worldwide, nowhere more so than in Thailand, home of the club’s owners King Power.

Claudio Ranieri, the former Chelsea manager who has masterminded Leicester’s rise since taking over at the start of the season, was celebrating the first major league title of his long managerial career.

Proud Ranieri

“I’m so proud,” the Italian, who was favourite in August to become the first manager to be sacked, said.

“I never expected this when I arrived. I’m a pragmatic man, I just wanted to win match after match and help my players to improve week after week. Never did I think too much about where it would take us.”

Defender Wes Morgan, who scored a vital equaliser in the 1-1 draw at Manchester United on Sunday, said: “Saturday can’t come quickly enough. I can’t wait to get my hands on the trophy.”

With two games left, Leicester are seven points ahead of Tottenham and Saturday’s home match against Everton will now become a glorious celebration for a club who were in the third tier of English soccer just seven years ago.

Tottenham had been hoping to claim a first English league title since 1961, when they won the double by beating Leicester in the FA Cup final, but fell short in agonising circumstances at Stamford Bridge where they have not won in 26 years.

“Congratulations to Leicester City and to Claudio Ranieri. A fantastic season,” Spurs manager Mauricio Pochettino said.

“It’s a massive, amazing season for Leicester, Claudio the players and the fans. They deserve it.”

Unfashionable Leicester, 5,000-1 outsiders at the start of the season, have become English champions for the first time and are the first club to win a maiden English title since Nottingham Forest in 1977-78, having left the likes of Manchester City and United, Chelsea and Arsenal in their wake.

Final act

Oddly, the biggest match in Leicester’s history was one they were not involved in as the final act of an absorbing title race was played out between last year’s champions and a Tottenham side who have refused to give up the chase.

But Ranieri’s intrepid team had already done the damage, churning out results to stay top of the table since Jan. 23 while their rivals fell by the wayside.

Since losing to Arsenal on Feb. 14, they won seven and drew three of their next 10 games.

Incredibly, Leicester spent half of last season bottom of the league before a late surge lifted them clear of relegation.

With Ranieri replacing Nigel Pearson as manager, they continued that momentum and from being pre-season tips for the drop, became title contenders as former non-league journeyman Vardy scored in a record 11 consecutive Premier League games.

Even when they hit the top in January, many thought Leicester would fade, as they did in 1963, the last time they were in with a chance of the title.

As the chasing pack thinned, however, Tottenham hung on to Leicester’s coat tails but substitute Hazard’s late goal sealed the destiny of the title, which left bookmakers up and down the country licking their wounds to the tune of millions of pounds.

“People will be talking about this in 100 years time,” Sky Sports pundit and former Liverpool player Jamie Carragher said.

Former England striker Alan Shearer won the title in 1995 with Blackburn Rovers.

“For a team like Leicester to come and take the giants on with their wealth and experience -- I think it’s the biggest thing to happen in football,” he said.

Writers pick Leicester’s Vardy as Player of the Year

Reuters: Leicester City’s Jamie Vardy has been voted Player of the Year by the Football Writers’ Association (FWA) in the latest twist to his fairytale ride from minor-league journeyman to international striker.

The 29-year-old, who built his career at clubs like Stocksbridge, Halifax Town and Fleetwood Town, has notched 22 goals this season to help fire Leicester from 5,000-1 outsiders to odds-on favourites to win the Premier League title.

Vardy, who also became the first man to score in 11 successive Premier League matches, is the first Englishman to collect the FWA honour since Scott Parker in 2011, and the first Leicester player to win it in the award’s 68-year history.

“It’s a great honour to win such a prestigious award and to have my name added to a list of previous winners that includes some unbelievable players. Thank you to the Football Writers’ Association and to everyone that voted,” Vardy said on Monday.

“Thank you also to my team mates who are the reason I’ve been able to achieve anything. It’s been an amazing season for all of us at Leicester, based on team work not individuals.

“Thanks also to the manager (Claudio Ranieri), all the staff and the fans for their support.”

England forward Vardy won 36 percent of the votes, beating team mates Riyad Mahrez and N’Golo Kante who finished second and third.

“The Jamie Vardy story clearly captured the imagination of so many writers,” FWA chairman Andy Dunn told Reuters.

“His record-breaking feat of scoring in 11 consecutive matches is the jewel in what will surely be Leicester City’s Premier League crown.

The Footballer of the Year award is not just a reflection of his fantastic season but recognition of a remarkable journey from non-league to the international stage,” said Dunn.

Vardy’s Leicester team mates Danny Drinkwater, Kasper Schmeichel, Wes Morgan and Danny Simpson also received votes from the 290 journalists polled.

“It is testament to their all-round excellence that so many Leicester players polled votes,” Dunn added.

Ranieri’s men have an eight-point lead over second-placed Tottenham Hotspur and will be crowned champions if Spurs fail to win at Chelsea later on Monday.

Vardy, who was suspended for Leicester’s previous two games, will return for their home match against Everton on Saturday.

Is Leicester’s 5,000-1 upset the greatest sporting shock?

At the start of the English football season last August, bookmakers in Britain were offering odds of 5,000-1 against Leicester City winning the Premier League.

5,000-1? Now, let’s put that into perspective.

The bookies offered odds 10 times more generous that the Loch Ness Monster would be discovered. Or more than twice as generous that Kim Kardashian would become U.S. president. It was only 2,000-1 that Elvis would turn up alive and well.

Should Presley materialise now, what price he would be wearing the shirt of Leicester City, who were crowned champions on Monday after Tottenham Hotspur failed to beat Chelsea?

For everybody has bought into the idea that, as Leicester’s most celebrated son, former England captain Gary Lineker, has suggested: “We could be celebrating the greatest sporting upset of all time.”

There are countless contenders for that accolade, from James ‘Buster’ Douglas knocking out the seemingly invincible world heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson in 1990 to a team of U.S. soccer part-timers beating mighty England 1-0 at the 1950 World Cup in Brazil.

Which other sports teams have defied such odds for month after month over an entire season?

In soccer, it happens rarely but always wonderfully. Montpellier in France’s Ligue 1 (2012), Kaiserslautern in Germany’s Bundesliga (1998) and AZ Alkmaar in the Netherlands’ Eredivisie (1981) have been similarly unfashionable conquerors.

Perhaps the best comparison was when Italy boasted the strongest league in the world and, in 1985, modest little Hellas Verona, like Leicester a Cinderella club whose collective strength was greater than the sum of its modest parts, enchanted a nation by winning Serie A’s ‘Scudetto’.

In English football, Leicester’s feat has echoes of another unsung provincial Midlands club, Nottingham Forest who, in 1977-78, became English champions for the only time in their history a year after scraping into the top flight.

One of Britain’s prospective rowing team for the Olympics, Jonny Walton, who hails from Leicester, recently mused about his chances of striking gold and said he now lived by a new mantra.

“It’s called: ‘Doing a Leicester’,” he explained. “And I’m crossing my fingers to ‘do a Leicester’ at the Olympics.”

In other words, making an impossible sporting dream possible.