"Lie-kester."
"No, Leicester."
"Less-ester?"
"No, Leicester. As in Lester."
"Oh. Why is it pronounced like that?"

If Leicester City win the Premier League, it will be one of the most captivating British sport stories in years.

For those not yet aware, a small, unfashionable team based in England's East Midlands has somehow stormed the Premier League.
With four games left, Leicester City are five points ahead of anyone and barring a collapse, on course for their first top-flight league title in their 132-year history.
That's what makes Leicester's potential feat on a comparative shoestring so remarkable, breaking into a rich elite. When they beat Manchester City recently, they overcame a squad that cost 15 times their own.

If Leicester was in the US, it might be...
*.Wichita, Kansas, similar population (roughly 375,000)
*.New Orleans, Louisiana, similar diversity (Leicester is majority non-white, 55%)
*.Belle Fourche, South Dakota, similar location (the geographical centre of England is Fenney Drayton in Leicestershire)

This team was in the third tier of English football in 2009, and after climbing to the top division, they spent months last season in bottom place.
They weren't just out of fashion, they were a byword for failure.
As recently as 18 months ago, the chairman of Marseilles said he would be a "sucker" to take an interest in signing any Leicester City player.
And their Algerian star player Riyad Mahrez says he thought they were a rugby club when they first expressed an interest in him.

Should they win English football's most prestigious prize, some say the feat would be the most unlikely event in the history of team sports. Globally.

Claudio Ranieri said: "This is a small club that is showing the world what can be achieved through spirit and determination. Twenty-six players. Twenty-six different brains. But one heart."

Leicester's success down to the implosion of several of the big English clubs like Chelsea, some astute Leicester signings and new manager Ranieri.
After a troubled summer when the last manager resigned after a Thai brothel scandal involving his son, the club turned to a man whose Greece side had just lost to the Faroe Islands. Suffice to say, hopes were not high.
Now Ranieri is a folk hero in the East Midlands and there's even talk of a knighthood from the Queen.

There is also an English king's hand in their success, if you believe in superstition. Ever since Richard III's body was dug up from a car park in Leicester and restored to the city's cathedral a year ago, their fortunes have turned around.
The Very Reverend David Monteith of Leicester Cathedral has said that the re-interment added to the sense of civic pride.

"History has been buried and now it's revealed in all kinds of different ways, not least in the [football] match."