Leicester, Richard III and King Power

Is the meteoric rise of Leicester City FC somehow linked to the Richard III story?  There are too many coincidences - and according to Gibbs' rule no 39 (NCIS), there's no such thing as coincidence.

Leicester's winning streak started after the reburial of the car park king - that's not being disrespectful, they sell mugs in the Richard III visitors' centre giftshop with that slogan emblazoned on them.

It's almost like he wanted to be found, and was then happy once he'd been laid to rest again.  The once much maligned king has become a good omen, a talisman for the city.

Before King Richard's reappearance Leicester was probably best known for Gary Lineker and Walkers crisps.

Now, there is a buzz about the city, and it can boast a Premier League winning football team, a rediscovered Plantagenet king, the National Space Centre and a fabulous John Lewis.

My family and I went to the King Richard III visitor centre in Leicester on the Sunday the Foxes played Manchester United.

The statue of the king was sporting a Jamie Vardy scarf, and the Cathedral was flying the Leicester City flag.  With that level of support I was pretty sure that Leicester couldn't fail.

Everybody was wearing blue - except one either extremely brave (or foolish) Man Utd fan in his red shirt. 

The Richard III visitors' centre was very interesting, and we learned the story of the king's discovery is full of coincidences and things happening to fall into place just at the right time.

From Philippa Langley having a 'feeling' that the king was in the social services car park, to the thunderstorm that happened at the moment when the bones were discovered, to the fact that there was only a small window of opportunity for the mitochondrial DNA evidence to be extracted from descendants of the king's female line of relatives for comparison with any skeleton found.

In fact, the story of the discovery of the king is almost as remarkable as Leicester City winning the Premier League, from their home ground called King Power.  Congratulations to Leicester, well deserved winners.