Leicester’s the place: the making of The World-Famous City

Well, there you have it. Normal business resumes in the East Midlands with those in red placed firmly in their box.

James Maddison, Harvey Barnes and Patson Daka went a short way to making up for the embarrassing FA Cup exit earlier in the year – but it’s off the pitch that has taken most of the headlines.

Apart from a five-minute spell in the second half when the home sections on Filbert Way took a collective breather, and those from Notts got their Instagram stories of ‘GR8 support’, City were dominant with even the deep corners of the West Stand on their feet to see the boys home for a first league win of the season.

The tone for the evening was set pre-match, with Union FS’s 14th full-stand tifo emerging from the Kop just as Jonny Evans led his City side out.

The display consisted of a three-block surfer banner depicting Nottingham-born Leicester City captain Wes Morgan kissing the Premier League trophy – the surfer measured at 45x30m.

The message banner was 2.8m high and 45m wide and read: “The World Famous City” – a dig at the away supporters’ delusion about their inadequate home.

In total, over 3,500 individual foils were used either side of the surfer in blue and white halves. Estimations within the group predict that well over 300 man-hours were spent on the implementation of the tifo.

Here’s how it was done…

Saturday 18th June - Online

With the fixtures announced and the opponent for the first tifo of the season agreed, materials are calculated and are ready to be put on order. The message banner wording is loosely agreed and the design is ready to go for club approval.

Saturday 2nd July - Online

The materials are ordered and dates are put forward for preparation days.

Sunday 10th July - Filbert Way, Leicester

Around a dozen came together during the summer to make the message banner. Two lines of blue tape were used for the outline and the letters were added.

Saturday 30th July - School Sports Hall, North Leicestershire

Five of the group were in attendance to plot and cut out the black and yellow shapes using a 2x2m grid. This was for the Premier League trophy and the different parts of Morgan’s face. Base strips were then stuck using duct tape every three meters on the underside.

Sunday 31st July - School Sports Hall, North Leicestershire

To finish off a productive weekend, the rest of the base strips – including Morgan’s face and the Premier League trophy crown - were stuck onto the surfer.

Monday 19th September - A West End Recreation Park, Leicester

By now the surfer was in two pieces so these were stuck together, and further parts of the black outline detail added to the overall design. The group had some very interested bystanders in the form of Leicester’s Polish community.

Saturday 24th September - School Sports Hall, North Leicestershire

Further black outline detail was stuck onto the surfer in the school car park. The paint additive was then mixed – rather than spending extra and unnecessary money on ‘tifo-ready’ paint, a decision was made to mix additive to help it stretch further.

Due to space constraints in the sports hall, the surfer had to be painted in two stages.

Morgan’s face was painted, and hair dryers had to be used to help speed up the drying process. Once dried, the grey of the trophy was painted on to the surfer. More foils were then pre-rolled to help with timing on matchday.

Previously, one of the most time-consuming parts of the process was rolling foils individually on the day before the game and this process had to be streamlined.

Sunday 2nd October - Filbert Way, Leicester

Time for action. More than 20 were in attendance on the Sunday evening. The message banner was taped to the poles and tested, the surfer was checked and put into position at the bottom of the Kop. Thousands of foils and leaflets were placed onto seats and a well-earned pint was had.

Monday 3rd October - Leicester’s The Place

Matchday. A few half-days were taken, and a few pints were sunk, with several groups meeting in a regular City Centre watering hole to discuss a mutual disdain for a red team down the road. Following plenty of handshakes and a great sing-song, it was down to the ground and time to put on a show.

Everybody knew their positions, everybody knew their timings. The message banner went out to jeers from the away end. I hope somebody in L-Block has a good video of the away end falling silent as they realised what was happening in front of them.

Tifo costs

Foil - £777
Foil Sheets - £344
Tape - £110
Paint £310
Leaflets: £60
TOTAL: £1,590

The total has been brought down significantly thanks to finding efficient ways of cutting costs. Paint additives, shopping around and keeping suppliers within the UK have all helped represent fantastic value for money when looking at what other ‘groups’ in this country are churning out.

Union FS will continue to push civic pride through their visual displays, and if everybody who enjoyed the tifo donated £1, the group would be able to put these displays on for years to come.

These are completely paid for by Leicester City fans and created using the hands of City fans.

Always have been, always will be.