Former Tulsa Roughneck Recalls Playing For Premier League Champions Leicester City

One of the greatest Cinderella stories in world sports became reality this week.

Premier League team Leicester City tied Manchester United 1-1 last weekend, and after Chelsea tied Tottenham Hotspur Monday it sparked one of the biggest parties ever for this small soccer club.

Leicester went from being one of the lowest teams in the league to winning it in just one season.

"Oh, I bet the place is on fire,” said Steve Earle. “I bet they burned it down nearly. They're a yo-yo team; they go up, they go down, they go up they go down, but the people in Leicester they must be buzzing."

Earle is an original Tulsa Roughnecks, but before he came to Tulsa he played for the Foxes of Leicester City in the 70s.

"In Leicester, you were only in the one area, so we'd go out and you get much more of a team spirit,” Earle recalled. “We had a very good team. [The] best we finished was seventh."

Later, he moved to Tulsa.

"I always remember driving down Harvard and there's a bank right by Skelly Stadium and it said 100 degrees. I said to my wife, ‘I’m going to die,’” he stated.

But in a twist, Earle says Leicester's story is similar to the Roughnecks championship season in 1983. The Foxes and the Roughnecks even played a friendly, a 3-3 draw.

"It's a similar scenario,” said Earle. “We're playing the Cosmos and they're putting a lot more money into it, and it's the same sort of scenario where Leicester's doing it on a shoestring and amazed everybody. They all play as a team and some of their players they bought for very cheap, turned out to be all-stars, so more power to them."

And Earle is proud to represent a team that exemplifies the true meaning of an underdog story.