Leicester’s ultimate top ten players ever: Strikers, No.1

Providing a list of the best strikers is a little easier than doing so for midfielders or defenders in the sense that they can be judged according to how many goals they have scored. That’s not the whole picture of course, but a forward who doesn’t convert chances is unlikely to survive for long. Leicester City have had some great strikers over the years. Today, number 1.

Given the exploits of Chandler, Rowley, Hine and Lineker, it is a difficult decision to name Jamie Vardy as Leicester City’s greatest ever striker. He hasn’t scored as many goals as Chandler or Rowley (194 to date) although he has played more games (475) for the club. The decision to name Jamie as number one is probably partly subjective in that I have witnessed first-hand his great contribution to the Foxes over the years. It is also in recognition, I suppose, of his rags to riches story which lightens the hearts of all football fans together with his loyalty to one club which is so rare in football these days. More objectively, Vardy has been at the heart of the club’s greatest every era, where major trophies, that had for so long eluded Leicester City, were finally won.

Jamie Vardy cost the Foxes £1m from Fleetwood Town, who had just, in 2012, been promoted to the Football League. This was a record fee for a non-league player, but still peanuts for a Premier League club. Born James Richard Gill (he took the name Vardy from his stepfather), Jamie was rejected by Sheffield Wednesday, the team he had supported from childhood, at 15 for being too small and lightweight (he was under five feet tall at that age) and signed for Stocksbridge Steel, a suburb to the north of Sheffield, in the Northern League as a part time player. After seven seasons, a move to Halifax Town for £15,000 followed before, less than a year later, he signed for non-league Fleetwood