From Wickersley Youth to the England Squad: Jamie Vardy
Some fantastic news for Wickersley Youth Junior Football Club over the last week. One of our own, former player Jamie Vardy made his debut for the full England Squad and put our club into all the national papers:
Jamie was out of football when he got the chance to represent Wickersley Youth and after impressing he got the chance to make the grade in semi-professional and finally professional football.
Vardy made his debut for England away at the Republic of Ireland and gave the story of how he got back into football:
“When I got released by Sheffield Wednesday, it was real heartache. They were the club I’d supported all my life. They said I was too small. I had a growth spurt a month after I got released.
“I stopped playing for a while and went to college. A friend of mine at college got me playing again for his Sunday side Wickersley Youth, based in Rotherham. I was 16, 17. Sunday league was completely different. Refs let you get away with murder. It was two-footed knee-high tackles coming in at you.”
He signed for Stocksbridge Park Steels. “If you got called up to the first team, even to just be on the bench, it was a standard £30-a-week, which I’d never earned through football before so I was happy to get that.”
All at the club would like to wish Jamie a big Well Done.
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