He may be a Premier League champion, one of the league’s top scorers and an England international, but life was not always so perfect for Jamie Vardy at Leicester.

The 29 year old has had the season of his life, scoring 22 Premier League goals and being named in the PFA Team of the Year. He is also virtually guaranteed a place in Roy Hodgson’s England squad in this summer’s European Championships, scoring in the side’s two recent friendlies against Germany and the Netherlands.

Speaking to Thai magazine “A Day” (in quotes widely picked up) in the wake of the club’s shock league title win this week, Leicester vice-chairman Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabha revealed that he initially did not even want the club to sign Vardy from non-league Fleetwood Town in 2012.

Vardy was signed for £1m – a record for a non-league club sale – and while he has since gone on to become a massive success at the King Power Stadium, the chances of him making a name for himself at the club were not always so promising.

Srivaddhanaprabha revealed that he had doubts about the player’s ability to make the massive step up, saying:

“I was against signing Jamie Vardy in the first place. I asked Nigel Pearson and Steve Walsh about him, checked the scout reports, and I started to believe he would be a good signing, but I had to answer the supporters who were asking ‘how is a non-league player worth £1 million?” “There was outrage from the fans. Some even called me to say ‘are you nuts? Why have you spent this much on a non-league player? “Back then, I think he didn’t even have what it took to play in the Premier League.”

It was, however, how Vardy chose to cope with the huge difference in quality between the lower level and the Championship that really worried the Leicester board members:

“He went straight from the bottom to the Championship, which eventually led him to start drinking booze every single day. We had no idea what to do. “I didn’t know about this until someone told me that he came to train while he was still drunk. So I went talk to him myself, I asked ‘do you wish to end your career like this? Do you want to stay here like this? We’ll let your contract run out, then release you. Don’t expect a better career path.’ “He said he didn’t know what to do with his life. He’d never earned such a large amount of money. So I asked him ‘what’s your dream? How do you think your life should be? Just think carefully about what would you do for the club. I invested in you, do you have to do something in return?'”

Thankfully for all parties, Vardy took this as a wake-up call, giving up drinking and working hard in training. It has paid massive dividends as both Vardy and Leicester have gone on to achieve unbelievable levels of success.

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