it is not every day that you go to a football match and end up with an Oscar in your hands. But then it’s not every day that a story like Jamie Vardy’s comes around.
Those of us inside the press box at the King Power Stadium in May 2017, a year after Leicester City’s sensational title win, passed around one of the famous bronze figurines that belonged to the co-producer of The King’s Speech who planned on taking Vardy’s underdog story to Hollywood.
While that tale is yet to make it to the big screen – though a Netflix documentary will soon be on our screens – Vardy has continued to write chapter after chapter, scene after scene.
Premier League title, FA Cup, Community Shield, Champions League quarter-final and two Championship crowns.
The Premier League’s 15th all-time leading scorer with 143 goals, the most by any player since turning 30 with 109, a Golden Boot winner and the man who broke current manager Ruud van Nistelrooy’s record of scoring in 11 successive Premier League matches.
An England international with 26 caps, who played at a European Championships and a World Cup.
Jamie Vardy has claimed the Premier League title, FA Cup , Community Shield and two Championship crowns during his incredible time at Leicester City
Mail Sport understands that Leicester allowed Vardy to make his own decision on his future
All this from the skinny lad from Sheffield that Leicester signed from non-league Fleetwood Town for £1million 13 years ago.
And yet all stories must come to an end and yesterday Vardy revealed that it was time, at last, to say goodbye to Leicester. He will leave, in this writer’s opinion, as the club’s greatest ever player.
‘To the fans of Leicester, gutted that this day is coming but I knew it was going to come eventually,’ said Vardy on social media. ‘I have spent 13 unbelievable years at this club with lots of success. Some downs but the majority were highs but it is finally time to call it a day, which I am devastated about, but I think the timing is right.’
Mail Sport understands that Leicester allowed Vardy to make his own decision on his future and the striker felt it was the right time to say goodbye. He is believed to be open to staying in the Premier League if the chance arises. He will not be short of offers abroad.
‘I want keep playing and doing what I enjoy most – scoring goals,’ he added on Instagram. ‘I may be 38 but I’ve still got the desire and ambition to achieve so much more.’
Even in a dreadful Leicester side that’s just suffered its second relegation in three seasons, he has still managed seven league goals.
What’s the secret? This is the same Vardy that drinks three Red Bulls before matches with his cheese-and-ham omelettes, mixed Skittles and vodka, drunk port out of a Lucozade bottle and stuck snus tobacco pouches under his upper lip.
Beyond those quirks, it’s also a Vardy who had a cryotherapy chamber built in his house to keep himself fit in later years.
Vardy has embodied what it means to be a Leicester City player during the most successful period of the club’s history
More than anything, he still cares. It was Vardy, now club captain, who apologised for the ‘s*** show’ of Leicester’s relegation after it was confirmed at the weekend.
This is part of what makes Vardy’s departure such an emotional moment for Leicester supporters. He’s the last of the title winners to leave, the final on-field link between the glorious past and the grim present.
It is Vardy who, for so long, embodied what it meant to play for Leicester, a team who once took great pleasure in punching above their weight. This was a player who before he turned professional worked in a factory making medical splints, released by Wednesday aged 16, and who’s journey to the Premier League came via Stocksbridge Park Steels, Halifax and Fleetwood before becoming the first non-League million-pound player in history.
They don’t make footballers like Vardy anymore. This was the Vardy who once turned up to training in a full Spiderman costume, the Vardy who once clingfilmed a pile of eggs around the Fleetwood chef’s car, and the Vardy who learns foreign swearwords to insult rival centre-backs.
This is the Vardy who loves celebrating in front of away fans, flapping his eagle wings against Crystal Palace, howling in front of the Wolves supporters or just pointing at the Premier League badge to remind Tottenham fans how many more titles he had than them.
Opposition crowds have never learned to stop chanting about his wife Rebekah’s part in the infamous Wagatha Christie trial with Coleen Rooney as, like clockwork, he scores and gives it right back.
They certainly don’t make footballers as loyal. Vardy turned down the chance to join Arsenal after the title win and signed a new contract when they got relegated two seasons ago.
It’s not always been incredible highs. Vardy struggled in his first season and it needed former Leicester manager Nigel Pearson and the late Craig Shakespeare to talk him out of quitting football to become an Ibiza party rep.
Vardy turned down offers from Arsenal and signed a new contract with the Foxes when they were relegated two years ago
Since Vardy made his Premier League debut only Harry Kane and Mohamed Salah have scored more goals in the competition
A year before Leicester’s title triumph, he was fined by the club after using a racial slur against a Japanese man in a casino.
During his non-league days, he wore an electronic tag after he was convicted of assault after defending his friend who was being abused for wearing a hearing aid and often had to be subbed early and hop over a fence into a getaway car to avoid breaking his curfew.
Vardy leaves Leicester as one of the greatest strikers of the Premier League era. He was 27 when he made his debut but, since then, only Harry Kane and Mohamed Salah have scored more goals in the competition – Vardy spent one of those seasons in the Championship.
This is the player who Michael Owen once laughably claimed was ‘not a natural finisher’ but went on to score incredible goals like his thunderous 30-yard strike against Liverpool, his stunning volley over the shoulder from Riyad Mahrez’s pass against West Brom, his little flick finish for England against Germany.
Erling Haaland revealed in 2022 that he watched YouTube videos of Vardy’s movement because he was ‘the best in the world’ at running in behind defences.
Vardy has five games left to say goodbye. The man who once inspired filmmakers to bring their little bronze statues into the stadium that for 13 years he made his own will, one day, have his own giant one outside its doors.
