LEICESTER -- Booed onto the pitch before the game, taunted with angry chants by their own supporters and the once-loved owners urged to "get out of our club" as the team were relegated to League One -- what a way for Leicester City to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the most remarkable story in Premier League history.
It's been nearly a decade since Claudio Ranieri's Leicester -- 5000-1 outsiders -- sealed the Premier League title, and it would be hard to argue that there has ever been a more unlikely football triumph anywhere.
But there was no joy this time, no Andrea Bocelli singing "Nessun Dorma" in the centre-circle, just bitterness and anger and the sight of club owner Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabha shrugging his shoulders and blowing out his cheeks as the supporters sang "sack the board" at the final whistle.
"The bigger picture is you don't get relegated over three or four games, you get relegated over a season," Leicester manager Gary Rowett, who replaced interim coach Andy King in February following the exit of Marti Cifuentes a month earlier, said. "We have to learn. I think the club have to accept this is the horrible part of the journey of a football club.
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"This club won the Premier League not too many moons ago. That was an incredible high at the time for the fans, for everyone associated with the club. The club has to rise again, but it has to learn its lessons because it's certainly been a season of an awful lot of regret."
Former Foxes winger Matt Piper, commentating on the game for Radio Leicester, described the relegation as the "worst" moment in the club's history.
"Leicester find themselves in League One with no real leadership, that worries me," Piper said. "When there's no leadership things sink. It's a desperately low time for the football club, probably the worst in its history. People just don't know what to do."
For all the romance of Leicester's title win, football is ultimately a brutal, unforgiving sport and that was brought home to a sparsely populated King Power Stadium as Rowett's team were consigned to relegation following a 2-2 draw with Hull City.
Leicester now share with Swindon Town, Southampton, Sunderland and Luton Town the unenviable distinction of suffering back-to-back relegations from the Premier League to League One. Only Blackburn Rovers, champions in 1995 and relegated to League One in 2017, know the humiliation facing Leicester of being former Premier League winners playing in the third tier.