It was at the start of the 2004/05 season that the managerial merry-go-round really started turning.
Mickey Adams was sacked in October and Howard Wilkinson was brought in as a stop gap before Craig Levein was lured from Hearts to take the job on a permanent basis.
He’d taken the Jambos to third place in the Scottish Premier League two years in a row and was seen as the man to bring success back to Leicester. Unfortunately he turned out to be about as useful as most other Scottish things in the world of football and was sacked early in 2006 with the club sitting in the relegation zone.
Assistant manager Rob Kelly stepped up to the plate, amassed a whopping 21 points from his first 10 games in charge and kept the Foxes up. As a reward he was given a one-year rolling contract, but after signing the likes of Danny Cadamateri and Geoff Horsfield it wasn’t going to be long until his days were numbered.
He eventually went in April 2007, shortly after the arrival of Milan Mandarić as chairman.
Nigel Worthington came in as caretaker boss, got the club to 19th place that season and wanted the job on a permanent basis, but instead someone, somewhere suffered a severe lapse of judgement and appointed Martin Allen instead.
Interestingly, Leeds went down this season, partly because of the 10 point deduction they received thanks to Leicester’s financial mishaps in 2002.
As for Martin Allen, you don’t get the nickname ‘Mad Dog’ for nothing, and Mandarić quickly found this out.
Allen reportedly scuppered a deal that Mandarić had engineered to bring Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink to the Walkers Stadium by insisting that the former Chelsea man undertake a month-long trial and then pulling the medical for no apparent reason.
Mandarić was also infuriated after his attempts to sign Celtic striker Derek Riordan were ruined by Allen refusing to make an offer.
Mad Dog was consequently given the heave-ho after just four games in charge and replaced by the much more staid figure of Gary Megson in September 2007. He didn’t last much longer however, buggering off as soon as a bigger club, Bolton, showed an interest in him.
That was at the end of October. By the end of November comedy quote machine Ian Holloway had shown up, become the first Foxes manger in over 50 years to win his first league game, and Milan Mandarić had been arrested on corruption allegations relating to his time as Portsmouth chairman, but was eventually released without charge.
As if things couldn’t get more tempestuous relegation to League One reared its ugly head at the end of the 2007/08 season and Holloway was sacked.
Sanity returned however as Mandarić managed to get Nigel Pearson in to the club. He’d just saved Southampton from the drop into League One and in his first season at the Walkers won the league with a margin of seven points.
Managerial stability is something Leicester fans are craving, and Mandarić is understandably keen to hang on to Pearson: "Nigel is a proper guy - he looks you in the eye, shakes you by the hand and you can trust in that."
The star of last year’s squad was undoubtedly Matty Fryatt, who scored 20 goals before Christmas. He was voted League One Player of the Year by Four Four Two magazine, and if he continues to hit the net as regularly next season might find a bigger club knocking on his door. Leicester City are more than aware of this and consequently gave Fryatt a new three-and-a-half-year deal in December 2008.
He’s linked up well with veteran Steve Howard up front, but 33-year-old Howard’s ability to cut it in the Championship might be questioned by some. Swindon’s 22-year-old Simon Cox is being targeted as a replacement having finished joint-top scorer in League One last year with 29 goals, although the Foxes have already had a bid turned down and reportedly face competition from Celtic for his signature.
Signings have already been made though in the shape of Hearts full-back Robbie Nielson and keeper Chris Weale from Bristol City, while permanent deals for loan centre backs Wayne Brown and Jack Hobbs have been tied up.
The big name doing the rounds on the message boards is Liverpool striker Andriy Voronin, who spent last season on loan at Hertha Berlin where he scored 11 in 20 games. If it happens it would be a massive coup and would probably also entail a big wage packet that could rock the dressing room a bit. Personally, I can’t imagine Pearson going for it and a lot of Leicester fans can’t either.
Even without him the odds are that Leicester will have a good season back in the Championship.
The transition from League One to the Championship is nowhere near as tough as that from the Championship to the Premiership, and not too many teams come straight back down. In 2007/08 Bristol City managed to get to fourth place after their promotion, and last season Swansea managed a respectable eighth.
The bookies are only offering 8/1 on them going up, and Leicester could easily follow in the footsteps of Manchester City by putting the lid on several years of disillusionment with a return to the Premiership.
Read part one of the Leicester City story here.