The sight of Tony Cottee in tears on the pitch at Wembley in March 1999 – after Leicester City's last-gasp defeat by Tottenham Hotspur in the final of the League Cup – appeared to be a heartbreaking final act in the striker's career.
However, as we talk in the garage he's recently converted into a bar at his home in Southend, Essex, there's a framed Foxes shirt on the wall, next to a photograph of the now-56-year-old lifting the League Cup a year later – the only major trophy of his professional career.
It was an achievement which cemented Tony's status as a Leicester legend, but it was also one of the major plot twists of a story which spanned well over the 19 years he spent playing football in English football. It includes chapters in the east end of London and Merseyside too.
