Thank you Vards
A short postscript to my piece here about watching Jamie Vardy, the Leicester striker who played his 500th and final match for Leicester last Sunday, and in the process scored his 200th goal for the club. A satisfyingly round pair of numbers to finish on.
It was a strange day for a Leicester fan: a sad end to a bad season, but also an opportunity to recognise and celebrate how lucky we have been to watch one of the finest strikers of the Premier League era play at the King Power for so long. And the first time for a long time that I’ve been to a game that anyone outside our fanbase has taken much interest in, with interviews and previews across the weekend media.
I got to Leicester early and in the warming mid-May sunshine went to look at one of the murals that sprang up across the city after 2016 which I’d not seen before, on Kate Street: Vardy and Andy King looking pensive.
Then along the Soar to the stadium, a route I used to go with my son when we first got season tickets, which always brings back memories of those bewildering early days of trying to find our feet in the Premier League in 2014, and the 5-3 against Man Utd when Vardy first announced himself to the league. There was a buzz outside the stadium: flags, sunshine, chat and Vardy shirts milling around the fanzone and the statue.
I went through the turnstiles and took my seat earlier than normal, to find a stadium full of nearly 30,000 white and blue flags - every single seat, except those in the away corner, had one - with ‘Thank you Vards’ written on them.
(I only realised later that the flags in the east stand opposite spelt out GOAT1.)
And as kick-off approached we stood and waved sincerely, a rare moment this season of the stadium coming together as one, with no noticeable grumbles.
Jamie Vardy was announced and led the team on as captain for the last time. I still don’t think that will sink in until next season.
The match itself was lacklustre - the best I can say for Ipswich, fellow relegatees, so we will be playing them next season, is that they were better than Southampton were two weeks before, though the result was the same. The stats say they had more and better chances than we did, but it didn’t feel like that most of the match.
The main event, of course, was Vardy scoring, which I thought he was probably going to and he duly did after half an hour - he’d had a couple of decent chances before that (one, from a free kick, looked from where I was sitting to have gone in but it was the wrong side of the side netting); but when James Justin picked up the ball after one of their players fell over, and scythed through their midfield, allowing Vardy to do a clever, darting diagonal run into the box to take the ball from him, there wasn’t really much doubt what the outcome would be. He put the ball through Dara O’Shea’s legs, their goalkeeper flapped helplessly, the net bulged and the stadium danced again. Vardy ran over to the far side of the pitch to the away fans who had been trying to rile him, picked up a corner flag and stood there defiantly; he hasn’t really changed.
The big screens flashed up the pre-prepared graphics proclaiming his 200th Leicester goal, different era Jamies coming out of each ‘0’. I have seen 90 of those.
The rest of the half, and much of the second, lacked purpose or energy, the main point of the day having been fulfilled early. Ipswich put us under resistable pressure at times, and Leif Davis thought he’d scored towards the end but an offside flag thought otherwise. Jeremy Monga and Jake Evans, two future stars (hopefully for Leicester), were brought on and played nicely. About halfway through the second half Kasey McAteer - one of our own - scored a nice goal from a tight angle, his first in the Premier League. But overall the match wasn’t memorable for the football.
On 80 minutes, Vardy was substituted, leaving the pitch for the last time through a guard of honour of team-mates. Wilf Ndidi (who assisted the McAteer goal) was substituted at the same time, and no-one really noticed but I suspect it’s the last time we’ll see him at the KP too - at times over the last few years he’s been one of our most reliable players, including last season when Maresca unexpectedly but successfully converted him into an attacking 8. Thank you Wilf.
The final whistle. A 2-0 win should be routine, but it’s only the second I’ve seen this grim season. Then we mostly hung around for the post-match stuff: many of Vardy’s former team-mates from across the years returned to see him go - he hugged them fondly and was interviewed in the middle of the pitch by Rob Dorsett, drily ignoring the misjudged shouts from some of the crowd to sack the Board (not the time, people), and there were presentations. His young daughter did a lap of honour, waving regally to us - she does not lack confidence - followed by the rest of her family and her father’s current and former work colleagues. And that was it.
After the match I bumped into a couple of friends walking back to the station and - after a day of welcome distractions and happy memories (thank you Vards) - we started the necessary task of looking ahead to what might happen next season. New division, new striker, new manager, new defence. New financial problems. New points deduction? We’ll find out in August. See you then.
Greatest Of All Time