By Alex Roberts
Now 38-years-old, Vardy has come a long way from the prosthetic limb factory he used to work at while playing non-league football. It’s just a shame his final season with the club comes with a relegation rather than something altogether more cheerful.
Released by Sheffield Wednesday at the age of 16, Vardy didn’t give up on his dream of becoming a professional footballer. He made it the hard way, earning £30-per-week while at Stocksbridge Park Steels before finding himself in the beautiful West Yorkshire town of Halifax.
Vardy ripped it up with the Shaymen, playing in a stadium that has been half-built for around 20 years. Twenty-six goals in his 37 games earned him a move to Fleetwood Town, where, again, he was a goal-scoring machine.
Back in 2012, Leicester were a thoroughly unremarkable side in the Championship. Vardy joined that summer, putting pen to paper on a three-year deal with the club splashing a massive £1m on the unproven striker, a non-league record.
People laughed, dumbfounded that Leicester would spend so much money on a player no one had heard of. If they were going off that first season, they would have been right to criticise. Vardy nearly quit football before being convinced to stick at it by then manager Nigel Pearson and his assistant, the late Craig Shakespeare.
In 2013-14, we started to see signs of the striker Vardy would become. He bagged 16 goals in his 37 Championship games, helping Leicester earn promotion to the Premier League as champions.
His first season in the big time was pretty rough, but the same can be said for every Leicester player during that campaign. The Foxes were glued to the bottom of the table for four-and-a-half months before winning seven of their last nine games to secure safety, finishing in 14th.
2015 was a simpler time. Pre-Brexit, pre-Trump and pre-COVID, we could still dream back then. After a season that saw them survive by the skin of their teeth, you’d struggle to find anyone who would have predicted what happened next.
Pearson was replaced by all-round good bloke Claudio Ranieri. The Italian had Premier League experience with Chelsea and a reputation as one of the most reliable coaches around, but he never really set the world alight.
Everyone knows what happened next. Leicester were predicted to go down but instead they only went and won the whole thing in arguably the greatest underdog story in the history of sports.
As is often the case, the vultures started to circle but the only major exit in the summer of 2016 was N’Golo Kanté. The Frenchman joined Chelsea and went on to become one of the best midfielders of his generation.
In the title winning season, Vardy became that ‘run-in-behind’ forward we all grew to love, using his electric pace to find the space between defenders, getting in their blind-spot before cooly finishing beyond any unsuspecting ‘keeper.
Vardy very nearly followed Kanté out of the club. Arsenal courted him, pretty intensely if reports at the time are to be believed. He had a £22m release clause in his contract, which Arsene Wenger decided to trigger, but Vardy didn’t fancy it, he had found a home.
In 2016/17 Leicester would play in the Champions League for the first time in their history, and they did well, reaching the quarter-final before being knocked out by Atlético Madrid. Vardy scored twice in their Champions League campaign, including the equaliser in the second leg with Atlético, which ended 1-1.
He may have performed a miracle, but it wasn’t enough to keep Ranieri in the job. About seven months after lifted the Premier League title, he was sacked. Shakespeare was given interim control before Claude Puel was later named as the new manager in October 2016.
It’s fair to say the Leicester fans never really took to Puel but Vardy’s form didn’t drop off during his disastrous tenure, scoring 16 goals in the Frenchman’s only full season at the club.
Puel came and went, and football’s David Brent took over. Brendan Rodgers’ time at the club was the most consistent among the managers Vardy worked with, finishing fifth in consecutive seasons, and beating Chelsea in the 2020-21 FA Cup final to lift the famous old trophy.
Rodgers was sacked in April 2023, probably later than he should have been, and Leicester would be relegated. At this point, it was pretty clear Vardy’s age was starting to catch up with him. Those famous runs in behind weren’t happening as frequently as they used to.
Even after relegation, Vardy stayed. He would lead the charge under Enzo Maresca to secure promotion back to the Premier League, leading the club’s scoring charts with 18 in 35 league games.
In a perfect world, Vardy would have scored another hatful of goals and Leicester would have stayed up comfortably, but this season hasn’t played out like that. The great man himself admitted the campaign has been a “total embarrassment.”
At least he was still able to have a laugh, blowing the ref’s whistle in the 2-0 win over Southampton after the official sustained a head injury.
There is no one in professional football like Jamie Vardy. Sinking Red Bulls, taking the preverbal, and bagging goals, he is one of a dying breed. With 110 Premier League goals after the age of 30, Vardy’s legacy goes well beyond Leicester.
Chat sh*t, get banged. We love you Jamie.
(Cover image from IMAGO)
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