THERE are, apparently, things one should not disclose in the modern world. If one is a celebrity, then the precise formation and identity of three at the back for a sporting evening of horizontal jogging should be guarded by the law; if one is a prime minister, then the amount of moolah one has in various accounts should only be extracted with the aid of a thumbscrew and an anguished cry of “we are all at it together, sorry we are all in it together”; and if one is a football fan, one should never say that one doesn’t care if Leicester City wins the league.

Yet, dear reader, I am that supporter. Outside of Tottenham Hotspur fans, there seem to be only a few of us who feel that way. We meet in secluded corners of the internet, fearing extraordinary retribution if our outlandish beliefs are made known to the mass of football. We are a sect. And we fear persecution.

Image if our heresy that Leicester City are merely an EPL club doing well in a pragmatic, functional way reached the mainstream? The expression of this thought would pollute the feelgood factor that football seems to need to sustain it. But Leicester are an EPL club like most others, driven by foreign wealth, populated by non-English players and adhering to the customs and practices of their competitors.

There is nothing wrong with this. And it is not as if we, the heretic faction, wish Leicester ill. But we do not feel the need to join a bandwagon that is fuelled by extraordinary hyperbole. We are, frankly, disdainful of the claims made on behalf of Leicester. We are football fans and we recognise the whiff of a bull with gastroenteritis when we smell it.

The first is this notion of the Leicester romance. The notion of the Foxes winning the league is as romantic as a frantic fumbling in a Soho alley of the 1960s. This is business. This Leicester team did not emerge fully formed from their youth academy or from a scouring of the free transfer market. The players were identified and bought. There is excellent professionalism in this but it is not the stuff of dreams.

Then there is the scale of the achievement. It is as if Tiger Tensing Mahrez and Sir Edmund Hillary Vardy have sprinted up Everest backwards pulling a Boeing 747 on a tow rope attached to their gnashers. There was one poll the other week proclaiming Leicester’s attempt to win the title as the greatest sporting achievement of all time. Lazarus winning the 36AD Olympics 100 metres was second, with Jimmy Krankie knocking out Sonny Liston a distant third.

It has been said, too, that Leicester are the repudiation of all that is wrong in football, the wonderful, joyful cry that the little guy, like the marvellous Jimmy Krankie, can punch above his weight in football. This little guy is Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha, a Thai businessman worth £2bn, who pledged an initial investment of £200m to the club and has already spent a third of that in transfers.

Leicester, too, are as enterprising and adventurous as a fixed rate ISA with a similarly low interest rate. Imagine for the merest moment that one was watching Mourinho’s Chelsea in blue rather than the Foxes? A series of 1-0 victories, an organised defence, a midfield that is industrious rather than brilliantly creative have all been the mark of the Special One. Mourinho has been consistently criticised for this. Yet this resemblance has been ignored as everyone sticks to the chant of “this is the greatest football story ever told”.

But, in truth, it is a familiar narrative and one that adheres to the realities of modern football. Leicester have succeeded because they played a percentage game, relied on the speed and brilliance of their main assets, and invested huge sums in well-scouted personnel. This is all commendable but it is far from the great sustained English stories of profound excellence: Clough taking Nottingham Forest to two European Cups, the Busby Babes, the influence of the Class of ’92 or the European dominance of Liverpool with a budget that was dwarfed by Italian and Spanish sides.

Leicester, it seems, will win the league. This will not cause me to ululate in grief, not least because my ululation has been long neglected since the sports editor embarked on his highly effective Mindfulness for Psychotics course. However, I would prefer that Tottenham won the championship instead because they have played the best football in the league throughout the season (they have scored more and conceded fewer goals than Leicester), because they promote young players, because they have developed talent through their academy.

I wish no awful Leicester collapse, however. It will be a great, life-affirming moment for their fans and I do not begrudge them that. But there is a lie at the heart of the message of the growing army of hangers-on. This is not the Foinavon of football. This is not the triumph of homespun values over crass commercialism – and at least another £100m into the Leicester coffers from telly money next season should reinforce that view. This is not the romance of sport. This is the brutal reality.

A smack in my kisser from the Leicester fellow travellers will merely confirm this.