Leicester City’s Premier League-winning season is a moment in time that no sports fan will be forgetting anytime soon.
The Foxes went from relegation candidates to champions of the biggest and best league in football within 12 months as Claudio Ranieri led a team of unlikely heroes to the most famous Premier League title of all time.
One of the stars of the season was Danny Drinkwater, who along with N’Golo Kante former the midfield spine that would power Leicester to the title and help the French international win a £30m move to Chelsea the following summer.
And Drinkwater has now shared what Leicester’s late owner, Khun Vichai, used to do for the players on a regular basis during the title-winning season.
Leicester players regularly taken out on nights out by Khun Vichai
Speaking on Rio Ferdinand Presents, the former Leicester and Chelsea star revealed that Vichai would regularly organise nights out for the Foxes squad during the Premier League-winning season, a factor that seemingly helped Ranieri’s side to the title.
With Vichai gifting Leicester players brand new cars after winning the Premier League, the Thai billionaire’s generosity was the stuff of legend at the King Power Stadium during the golden era of the club.
And in the words of Drinkwater, nights out organised by Vichai were key in Leicester winning the Premier League, with the former midfielder saying: “That Premier League season, we was probably on a night out, a team night out together at least once a month.”
“I’ve never seen or known anything like it. Even at the casino, we wouldn’t be gambling, but he’d have a room, like a full-function room. After the games we’d have a meal for us, drinks, it was just unreal.”
What happened to Danny Drinkwater after leaving Leicester?
With Drinkwater nicknaming Ranieri ‘grandpa’ during Leicester’s title-winning season, the midfielder’s legacy at the Foxes will forever be cemented given all the Manchester-born maestro did for the club before joining Chelsea.
Yet as many Leicester fans know, this move to west London was the beginning of the end for the 35-year-old’s career in the top-flight, with Drinkwater going on to make just 23 appearances across five years with Chelsea and heading out on loan four times.
Now working in construction, Drinkwater’s fall out of football has been as dramatic as it has been quick, yet for Leicester fans, the midfielder will always hold a special place in the hearts of supporters.