It’s time Britain admitted it, Leicester is the best city in the Midlands

Leicester was, until recently, under the radar. It was the city that had that X Factor winner who got dropped by Simon Cowell’s label. But after a dead king turned up in a car park and local heroes Leicester City smashed the Premier League, it’s time for us to emerge from the shadows. Gone are the days when people would ask “Where’s Leicester?” and you’d have to wince the reply, “Near Nottingham.” Leicester is now the hottest city in Britain and here’s why.

Flickr: u07ch / Creative Commons

We have the Clock Tower

To outsiders, the words “Clock Tower” mean nothing. To chissits in Leicester, it is our landmark. Think Big Ben, but smaller and surrounded by goths and awkward teens nervously awaiting their date to turn up. Constructed in 1868, our beloved Clock Tower marks the official meeting point in “tahn” and we would all be lost without it.

Flickr: momentum / Creative Commons

We love it when our city gets less crappy

When The Shires got a radical makeover and became The Highcross, we lost our cool. We finally got a Topshop and an Apple store and it suddenly felt like Christmas had come early. The thing is, we had got so used to the city centre being a dump that having this swanky new shopping centre just blew our minds. Add in the new Haymarket Bus Station and we’ve pretty much all exploded with excitement about how much our city is developing.

A LOT of famous people have roots in Leicester – and we’ll let you know it

In Leicester we really like to milk it when one of our own makes it in show business. Look back at Sam Bailey, we cheered her on, called in every weekend when she was on the X Factor – and she even turned on our Christmas lights one time. But some national heroes you might be surprised lived in Leicester include the nations shared granddad, David Attenborough! If you’re not from Leicester, we will tell you over and over again about how THE David Attenborough lived in Leicester. That’s not even mentioning Gary Lineker, Kasabian, Thomas Cook, Peter Shilton and Sue Townsend (on and on and on).

We found a DEAD KING in a CAR PARK

This, alongside winning the Premier League, is Leicester’s greatest achievement and we love to talk about it. OK, really we are sick of hearing about it, but if we hear an outsider slagging off our King Ricky 3^rd, we turn into the Hulk. What we really love about it is how much we’ve milked it, we have talks and an exhibition all about him; we even had a funeral march for the dude.

Flickr: Wyrmworld / Creative Commons

Our club scene is actually pretty decent

We have student favourite, MOSH, which is actually one of only two MOSH nightclubs in Britain (the other being in Derby but who cares about that one right?) Leicester’s MOSH is the only place to be seen on a Tuesday night, downing a £2 Jagerbomb while dancing to Mr. Brightside – and not to mention, the girls toilets is one of the best for making drunken best friends. But we also have Republic which hilariously featured in Tyga’s music video for I $mile, I cry.

We have a lot of cool places to visit 

Granted, we may not have a ice rink like Nottingham or the edginess of Digbeth in Birmingham but what Leicester does have is cool museums, exhibitions and even a zoo to keep us entertained. Pretty much every person in Leicester, willingly or not, has visited the Jewry Museum, Jewry Wall, National Space Centre, New Walk Museum, Twycross Zoo and St Nicholas Church at least once.

Our market is AWARD WINNING

Yes you read that right. Even though Leicester’s market does smell a bit fishy, its Food Hall officially received the Great Britain Market Award for Best Food Market back in 2015. Take that Albert Square. It’s also getting a cool new refurbishment so of course we Leicester folk are so excited at how cool our city is going to look.

We have a fair bit of greenery

What a lot of cities lack – that Leicester thrives in – is greenery. In Leicester, we’ve got parks left, right and centre that always have some sort of event on. There’s Victoria park, christened “Vicky” which is pretty much in the centre of Leicester, get that a massive park in the middle of a city. How swanky are we? Everybody’s favourite Abbey Park cannot be missed as it hosts yearly events like the Bonfire Night fireworks which once got opened by The Vamps ladies and gentlemen. That’s not even mentioning Bradgate “Braggie” Park which is littered with deer poop but full of streams and hills and rocks to climb.

Photo taken by @daisybeckham.

Leicester City

OK it needs to be addressed. These wonderful lads are heroes. They put Leicester back on the map (with a little help from King Ricky) and for that, everyone in Leicester adores them. Words can’t really describe the feel of the city in the weeks after we won the Premier League and even now we all still feel pumped up.

Photo taken by @dishpics.

Being the most multicultural city in Britain

It’s more than us just being the most multicultural city in Britain, it’s the fact we are proud of it. Many outsiders ask whether the clash of cultures is an issue and in Leicester it really isn’t. We all love to party and celebrate whenever we can. We proudly have one of the biggest Diwali festival outside of India, have huge Eid celebrations and Christmas gets some dazzling lights and a massive tree next to our beloved Clock Tower. We are actually so united that we once chased off Britain First protesters back in May.

We have our own language

“Chissits”as we are known in Leicester love to speak in tongues. We have an accent that constantly gets stick but is it really that bad? We love to replace “er” with “ah” (e.g. newspapah, Lestah) and pretty much don’t pronounce any place in Leicester correctly but you know what WE DON’T EVEN CARE.

Leicester may not be the first city people think of but it is by far the best Midlands city.