The "wee golden era" over which Martin O'Neill says he has presided in his five years at Filbert Street continued to shine at a grey and blustery Wembley stadium yesterday.
Leicester City, with two goals from their free-scoring centre half Matt Elliott, both headers from Steve Guppy corners, collected their second League Cup in four years and they will be in European football once again next season.
For Elliott, whose wife Catherine is preparing to give birth, it represented a strange, beautiful hat-trick. The Leicester captain, Elliott also got to lift the trophy. Catherine should have gone into labour there and then.
However, if the prizes and smiles were Leicester's, the honour and glory belonged to Tranmere Rovers. Reduced to 10 men with 63 minutes gone after Clint Hill was sent off, and already one goal down to Elliott's first contribution, Tranmere produced a magnificent fightback. It culminated with 12 minutes to go when David Kelly scored with a delicious strike from a narrowing angle.
Sadly for Kelly, John Aldridge and the 25,000 down from Birkenhead for the day, Rovers' parity of esteem was to last only two full minutes. In their next attack, Leicester won a corner and from it Elliott rose above Dave Challinor for the second time in the game and planted a six-yard header to the side of the blameless Joe Murphy.
With five minutes remaining of a rousing afternoon, Leicester then had a great chance to extend their lead, only for Neil Lennon to shoot over with just an off-balance Murphy in front of him.
Still breathing, Tranmere summoned one more effort. It was the first minute of injury-time, Kelly had the ball in the Leicester box; he crossed to the far post where Scott Taylor, unmarked, jumped and powered the ball goalward. Tim Flowers was beaten, but the ball clipped the crossbar. Tranmere's time was up.
Another three minutes sped by and the substitute referee, Phil Richards - he replaced the injured Alan Wilkie just before the hour mark - blew his whistle.
O'Neill and Aldridge exchanged a terse handshake, as the mood on the benches had been soured by a Leicester substitute's gleeful reaction to Hill's dismissal. Aldridge looked particularly annoyed and said after: "To see a player applauding a fellow professional being sent off disturbed me."
O'Neill's priorities were elsewhere, of course, and as he walked up the famous steps he was embraced by his mentor, Brian Clough.
"He pulled me to one side," said O'Neill. "It would be patronising to say we won it for anyone other than ourselves, but it was nice that he was here."
O'Neill added that: "Tranmere were excellent." But that was of no consolation to Aldridge.
"It's always hard to take, no one likes losing," said Aldridge, a man who once missed a penalty in a cup final, "but we did ourselves proud today, I'm glad that we proved a lot of people wrong. I love that, love it."
For prolonged periods Aldridge's side, mid-table in the first division, out-Leicestered Leicester. Ferocious in the tackle, hunting in packs and then passing the ball simply, Tranmere were the better outfit until Leicester scored.
Central to their superiority was Alan Mahon, whose tenacity and cultured left foot created the game's first openings. Unfortunately for Mahon, Taylor showed less poise in the 19th minute and drove the ball over the advancing Flowers and the bar.
O'Neill's anxiety at that was evident in his departure from seat to touchline, although 10 minutes later his next visit there was a celebratory one.
Guppy swung in a corner from the right, Elliott eluded the attention of Challinor and placed a firm header onto the bar. Murphy had failed to make contact with header, but when the ball rebounded off the woodwork it hit the back of the 18-year-old Dubliner's hand. That was enough to send it over the line. Murphy was unlucky.
Leicester were steadied by that and, with Lennon controlling possession, settled into a neat progressive rhythm. It continued after the interval, Muzzy Izzet wasting an easy opportunity when one-on-one with Murphy, and then the match changed when Hill brought down Emile Heskey after the England striker had turned swiftly.
Hill, already with one yellow card after a vicious foul on Stefan Oakes in the first half, had to go. The substitute referee made sure by showing a straight red card. Aldridge grumbled about the referees, but he was defending the indefensible here.
Heskey, who is expected to move to Liverpool this week for around £10 million, did little else. Instead it was the 34-year-old Kelly who came to prominence, pouncing on Taylor's knockdown to equalise and set up a thrilling finale.
But it was to be Elliott in the starring role rather than Kelly. At the end his eyes searched the crowd for his wife and spotted her "jigging around with the best of them". As Elliott said of the expectant couple: "That didn't happen today, but everything else did."
And a nation was supposed to have shrugged at the prospect of Leicester and Tranmere at Wembley.
LEICESTER: Flowers, Sinclair, Elliott, Taggart, Savage, Guppy, Izzet, Lennon, Oakes (Impey 77), Heskey, Cottee (Marshall 89). Subs Not Used: Arphexad, Zagorakis, Gilchrist. Goals: Elliott 29, 81.
TRANMERE: Murphy, Hazell, Challinor, Hill, Roberts, Parkinson (Yates 66), G. Jones, Henry, Mahon, Kelly, S Taylor. Subs Not Used: Thompson, Morgan, Black, Achterberg. Sent Off: Hill (63). Booked: Hill, Challinor. Goals: Kelly 77.
Attendance: 74,313
Referee: A Wilkie (Chester Le Street).
