From £120 a week at Stocksbridge to champion of England with Leicester
Released by Sheffield Wednesday at 16, Jamie Vardy was earning £120 a week at non-League Stocksbridge Park Steels. Within a decade he had scored in 11 Premier League games in a row and helped unfancied Leicester City take the title, finishing that 2015–16 campaign voted the league's best player.
He was born Jamie Gill in Sheffield in January 1987, taking the surname of his stepfather Phil Vardy, a crane worker, after his biological father left when he was a baby. He grew up in Hillsborough idolising the Wednesday striker David Hirst, and was crushed when the club let him go. At Stocksbridge he scored 55 goals across all competitions, had a week's trial at Crewe that came to nothing and turned down a short deal at Rotherham.
The climb up the pyramid was fast. Halifax paid £15,000 for him in 2010, and he rewarded them with 25 goals in 37 games. A year later Fleetwood Town signed him, and his 31 league goals made him the Conference Premier's top scorer as the club won the title and reached the Football League for the first time. Blackpool's Ian Holloway bid £750,000 after a cup tie; Fleetwood held out. In May 2012 Leicester paid a reported £1 million, a record fee for a non-League player.
His first Championship season was hard, but in 2013–14 he hit 16 league goals as Leicester went up as champions. In September 2014 he scored once and created the other four as Leicester came from 3–1 down to beat Manchester United 5–3. Then came 2015–16: he became the first player to score in nine consecutive Premier League games within one season, stretched it to 11 to beat Ruud van Nistelrooy's record, and won both the Premier League and FWA awards as Leicester became champions.
No one older had ever won the Golden Boot than Vardy did for 2019–20. He added the 2021 FA Cup, captained Leicester back up in 2024 and left in May 2025, 13 years to the day after signing, with 200 goals in 500 games. After a season at Cremonese he joined Burnley in 2026.
Source: Jamie Vardy
