I’ll forever remember Manchester City away.

The day at the beginning of last February when Leicester City tore apart the richest club in England.

Riyad Mahrez’s impudent step-over (what a goal) followed by Robert Huth’s looping header for the third, so reminiscent of the one he got at White Hart Lane to beat Tottenham.

I remember it as the day I, and so many other football followers, thought ‘Wow. This could actually happen.’

I remember how they recovered after losing to Arsenal and I remember the run they put together to clinch it (1-0 wins win you championships, as they will Chelsea this season).

And I vividly remember how wonderfully ecstatic football fans across the globe were when the impossible came to fruition and Claudio Ranieri landed the 5,000-1 shot and achieved the greatest sporting triumph in history. Oh, yes it is. Nothing even comes close.

In the modern-era, with the multitude of millions in the game, Ranieri took ‘a relegation club’ that most people outside of England couldn’t even pronounce properly (Ly-kes-ter?) - and made it one on the lips of every fan on earth.

There are very few things in football nowadays which truly shock. But Thursday night’s decision to sack Ranieri most certainly did.

I’ll remember Thursday, February 23, 2017 as the day I think football finally lost its soul.

“Dilly Ding Dilly Game’s Gone,” Leicester City’s most famous fan and former player Gary Lineker, a man who berated the appointment of Ranieri and then ever-so happily ate a huge slice of humble pie, quite aptly tweeted.

“After all that Claudio Ranieri has done for Leicester City, to sack him now is inexplicable, unforgivable and gut-wrenchingly sad,” added the TV presenter.

And why now? Why midway through a Champions League tie against Sevilla where they have given themselves a wonderful opportunity to progress? A battling performance from the kind of last season that could have, as Ranieri said he hoped, given them impetus on the domestic front.

There will, of course, be some who sneer. How naive, they’ll chime. A man who has presided over the worst title defence in English football history — with the loss of only one player from the crop who won it last year — and taken Leicester from top to fourth-bottom in the space of a year.

A ‘Tinkerman’ journeyman who struck lucky, got found out and deserved to be sacked because, well, football’s a results business, isn’t it?

How utterly disrespectful.

At the beginning of the season in this very column and on Gulf News’ Facebook Live, I said I thought Leicester City could be relegated this season — and was told by some colleagues how disrespectful I was being. Easily top 10, top 8 they replied.

Perhaps people forget what Leicester City are — they are, at best, a yo-yo club between the Premier League and the lower divisions (yes, divisions plural. Eight years ago they were in the third tier of English football).

They escaped relegation by the skin of their teeth the season before Ranieri took over. The goal this season was stability — to become a Stoke City, a West Brom. An established Premier League club.

And Ranieri should have been allowed to do that — regardless of where this campaign actually ended. Nine months? Nine months after the greatest sporting story ever told?! It’s not just disrespectful — it’s disgusting, and, indeed, gut-wrenchingly sad.

The owners of Leicester City should remember this.

Every real football fan wanted Leicester to win the league last season. Now every real fan will quite happily wave them back down to where the club belong.