Leicester City fans cause 'biggest Vardyquakes'

Boisterous fans at Leicester City’s final home game of the season caused “the biggest” tremors recorded at the ground, literally making the earth move.

A University of Leicester team which installed a seismometer near the King Power Stadium reported two minor quakes with a magnitude of 0.4 on Saturday night.

Known as Vardyquakes, the tremors have been attributed to sudden energy releases made by Foxes fans.

Goals by both Jamie Vardy and Andy King notched up quakes of 0.4 magnitude, the BBC reported today.

“The fans must have been truly energised for their team to end the league on a high and we can see this with the seismic waves they produced,” said research team member Richard Hoyle.

“The signals we measured at Saturday’s game were the biggest we have seen coming from the King Power Stadium since we started monitoring the matches.”

He added: “If we collate all of the data from previous matches, out of all the Leicester City Football Club goal scorers, Vardy is responsible for generating the most seismic activity since the project started - so perhaps there really is such a phenomenon as the Vardyquake!”

Until the game against Everton, the biggest reading was when Leonardo Ulloa scored a last-minute winner against Norwich, in February. It registered a magnitude of 0.3.

A seismometer was installed by geology students, and the British Geological Survey (BGS), at Hazel Community Primary School, 500 metres from the stadium, as part of a project to detect earthquakes around the world.

When it was installed, Paul Denton, a seismologist from the BGS, said researchers wondered if football fans would affect the detectors.

“The seismometers were actually closer to the Leicester Tigers ground and so we were expecting stronger signals from there but we can’t find anything.

“It says something about the nature of football, it’s so tense and then we get four or five seconds of unexpected magic,” Denton said.

Thousands of fans flocked to Leicester on Saturday to celebrate the Foxes being handed the Premier League trophy, after their fairytale season.

Leicester City completed one of the greatest-ever sporting achievements on May 2 when the 5,000-1 underdogs won the Premier League for the first time.