Leicester City Football Club were founded in 1884 as Leicester Fosse, playing their early games on a field near the ancient Fosse Road. Their nickname today is the Foxes, probably because of this. The club crest features a fox. They started playing at the Filbert Street stadium in 1891 and kept it as their home ground for 111 years, moving to the nearby Walkers Stadium in 2002. Original plans to call the new stadium 'The Walkers Bowl' were angrily refuted by the fans, who thought it sounded less like a stadium, and more like something you'd eat crisps out of.

The closest Leicester have come to winning the football league was in the 1928-29 season, when they were runners up to The Wednesday (today called Sheffield Wednesday). They have been FA Cup runners up four times, a record for most final defeats without having won the trophy, but have won the League Cup 3 times, in 1964, 1997 and, most recently, in 2000. Leicester left the top two divisions for the first and only time in the club's history in 2008, but bounced straight back by winning League 1 at the first attempt.