You’re born. You learn to crawl. You learn to walk. And not long after that, you learn to kick a ball around. You enjoy it. You’re good at it. You start playing for a team. You get trials. You sign for a club. You keep improving. You dream of playing in the Premier League or the Champions League or the World Cup.
A footballer’s career can go in all kinds of directions, but there aren’t many that will end up with your final game for your club being all about you rather than the result. Where 30,000 people are professing their undying love for you. Huge dictator-like drapes with your face on them hanging from the stadium roof. People walking around in full-head goat masks because, for them, you are the undisputed greatest of all time. Endless songs about you. Your youngest child doing a full lap of the pitch on their own at walking pace while applauding the supporters as they implore the club to sign her up.
All you have to do, for the 500th and final time, is turn up. Oh, and score. You have to score.
Leicester City players and staff often talk about the club being like a family. You can see that in the relationship Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabha has with Jamie Vardy. It clearly goes beyond the professional, which is unsurprising when you consider what they’ve been through together. When players and staff talk about family, they generally mean the inner sanctum at Seagrave but there’s an occasional reference to us, the fans, being a part of it too. And it’s true. We are an extended part of this very weird, dysfunctional family. Always ready to show our love for those who deserve it and always on the cusp of exploding and everything falling apart.
There was always going to be an edge to Leicester City’s final home game of a miserable 2024/25 season. This could never just be about Jamie Vardy’s final game. Because, sooner or later, someone was going to announce the starting eleven. Leicester fans had two messages to send: an outpouring of gratitude for a living Leicester legend and a determination to give our verdict on the current squad, the current board, the current situation and the decline that hardly anybody at the club seems willing to acknowledge or try to arrest.
Of course, Jamie Vardy was one of the few to meaningfully address what has been, in his words, a shit show from start to finish. And that kind of edge has played a large part in the connection he has forged with Leicester City supporters. Vardy has, through a potent combination of effort, quality and relatability, managed to appeal as much to the seated replica shirt-wearers in the lower reaches of the King Power Stadium as those standing, snarling and sniping from the upper rows of SK1 and L1 – and everyone in between. He’s brought all of us together.
But there was still that edge. The lurking menace reminding those in charge of this football club that while we were happy to pay our respects to our greatest ever player, the occasion could not completely conceal the massive issues that demand decisive action.
This game may have been all about 199 becoming 200 for Jamie Vardy but at first, it looked like it would go from 0-0 to 0-1. Ipswich were much the better team in the opening period, with a clear and coherent way of attacking quite at odds with our approach of every player getting the ball and then starting to decide what to do with it. Both teams were looking to their left-back to provide their creative spark but Ipswich were simply better at it, Leif Davis afforded plenty of space while Leicester struggled to work the ball to the rejuvenated Luke Thomas.
Ipswich looked like a reasonably well-coached team being let down by a lack of individual quality at the top level. Leicester, meanwhile, had the bigger names and wages but not a lot else and concern grew that perhaps this team wouldn’t be capable of creating the chances Vardy needed.
There’s been a creeping suggestion that Ruud van Nistelrooy should retain his position as manager despite the monumental, record-breaking failure he has overseen in the past six months. This has been fuelled by a win over the second worst Premier League team of all time, a couple of 2-2 draws away from home and a vague sense that he knows our problems better than anyone.
The issue here is that he’s as much of a problem as anyone. Van Nistelrooy hasn’t had a good squad to choose from and his options at centre-back and central midfield have been particularly pathetic all season. But neither has he looked remotely like finding a solution to these problems and he’s made the same mistakes over and over again.
When he has found solutions, they’ve felt like an extra kick in the teeth because they could have been found so much earlier. Bilal El Khannouss should have been moved out wide months ago. There should have been many more opportunities for Stephy Mavididi, Facundo Buonanotte and Kasey McAteer when available. If Luke Thomas was capable of these performances all along, wouldn’t a better manager have discovered this earlier?
Van Nistelrooy’s extreme caution, always slow to try something new or bold, was summed up here by his decision not to start Jeremy Monga. There were reasons for it, of course, and Leicester won the game so it’s not a direct criticism as such but it would have helped give more back to the fans and it would have demonstrated something a bit punchier than the unimpressive van Nistelrooy era so far.
Twenty minutes in, Leicester hadn’t had a single shot let alone crafted anything for Vardy. Then they did. Twice in two minutes. First, Jordan Ayew played him in for what looked like a trademark JV9 finish. But Vardy delayed, the Ipswich defenders recovered and his eventual effort was weak and off target. Then a dinked free kick fell to him but his attempt had the same result.
But at least the chances had started coming. He never got that many even when both he and this club were at their absolute peak. He never needed that many.
When Vardy broke his current manager’s goalscoring record, he was running onto a through ball from a full-back at the north end of the stadium in the 24th minute. When he scored his 200th goal of his Leicester City career, he was running onto a through ball from a full-back at the north end of the stadium in the 28th minute. Ten years on, another famous goal celebrated more for the man who scored it than the fact it put Leicester City into the lead. And that noise was special, something we haven’t heard too many times this season, to greet something we’ll never see again.
Beggars can’t be choosers. We’d have taken a penalty or a scruffy toe-poke. But if you haven’t been paying attention all along, this has always been one big fairy tale with a choose-your-own-adventure feel to it and so we got to experience Vardy running off the opposition back line and steering the ball past the goalkeeper one last time.
His final Leicester City goal celebration, a corner flag held aloft in front of the away end, was already iconic as soon as it happened.
Ipswich might not have been too thrilled about it but the match might as well have ended there and then. He’d done what he had to do. We’d seen what we came to see. Blow the whistle ref and let’s see Nige again.
One of the more notable developments in the stands since relegation was confirmed has been, from a large section of supporters, the abolition of unwavering support for all members of the squad. Suddenly, the announcement of the lineup took on a pantomime quality. Jakub Stolarczyk – hurray. James Justin – boo. Luke Thomas – hurray. Conor Coady – boo. Wout Faes – well, you can guess the rest.
Justin in particular, whose assist made Vardy’s 200th goal possible, can feel a bit hard done by about his designated reception each week. He’s always looked like he’s trying, even if that hasn’t resulted in Premier League level defending on many occasions.
But the other surprising boo is for Jordan Ayew, whose relationship with the fans could be encapsulated by this game. After having had his name booed, primarily for having been signed and for not being ten years younger, he proceeded to put in a completely Jordan Ayew performance, bustling about and winning more than his fair share of free kicks. He will have then heard a loud chorus of his name echoing around the stadium.
And this feels similar to what’s happened with James Justin, Conor Coady, Wout Faes, Boubakary Soumare and Patson Daka to name just… half the team. Generally limited top flight players who have been given a contract by this woefully mismanaged club, the majority of whom have been trotted out over and over again because there’s very little credible alternative and then booed for daring to turn up. They’re either mostly not good enough or mostly not trying but some sections of the fanbase appear to think it’s a huge amount of both, which doesn’t make a lot of sense. But then the anger has to be directed somewhere.
Here, it was in fact directed with more venom and decibels than ever at Jon Rudkin – who notably stayed in the stands for the on-pitch Vardy after-party. It was a reminder, if needed, that a few post-relegation points won’t kill the thirst for change in the boardroom. It may sound like a vicious singling-out to some but the overriding feeling is that actually, can’t we just try something different at director of football level now? As with the costly clinging to Brendan Rodgers way beyond his sell-by date, the refusal to move in a new direction looks like complacency.
Meanwhile, we’re looking for new directions where we can – or must. One obvious candidate for next season is the goalkeeping gloves, handed again to Jakub Stolarczyk in Mads Hermansen’s absence. Stolarczyk ended up a minor talking point from this match despite having just two of a wildly profligate Ipswich’s 20 shots to save. The reason was his iffy distribution. Even if you’re not playing some extreme Enzoball style, the modern goalkeeper needs to be able to pick out a twenty-yard pass to his defenders. Stolarczyk can do it, but he’s too inconsistent at the moment and work must be done over the summer. He is, nevertheless, a commanding presence when the opposition have the ball and another clean sheet is a good confidence boost.
Leicester had laboured to the hour mark without showing much class other than Vardy’s landmark moment, but the final half hour was an improvement. First, McAteer strode infield and hit the post with an excellent left-footed shot and then a double substitution saw Ricardo Pereira and Jeremy Monga enter the field. Within minutes, it was 2-0 and while the goal had little or nothing to do with the substitutions, Monga did choose the right option in the buildup to initiate the switching of play. El Khannouss found Wilfred Ndidi who in turn laid the ball on for McAteer and his first-time strike surprisingly beat Alex Palmer at the near post.
Most Leicester fans would probably have taken a Vardy goal in a draw or defeat over a win without Vardy getting number 200, but to get both felt fitting. Ipswich had the better chances, Davis hitting the post and Omari Hutchinson firing wastefully over in the first half to add to the sense that it would be Vardy’s day as scripted. We even had one final time on Filbert Way to thank VAR for disallowing a Davis consolation in the dying minutes before another hiatus for long interventions from Stockley Park.
Vardy had been withdrawn by then, a guard of honour from his current team-mates guiding him off the pitch for the last time. Once the whistle was blown, attention turned fully to honouring our greatest ever player. After a short wait and a very village-fete setting-up of a small table in the centre circle, the former players began to arrive. Amusingly, the big build-up sparked the arrival of Conrad Logan first of all but then a procession of favourites and cult heroes. We picked out some names and pondered the absence of others, particularly Kasper Schmeichel who had been in the stands but left before the ceremonies could begin.
Fittingly for a family, there was a family Christmas feel as Vardy was gifted a golden fox for the mantelpiece along with a commemorative book. The Vardy family then gave Top a framed picture before Jamie was given the 2024/25 Player of the Year award. It’s the first time he’s won it, which feels a little odd in some respects but, as goal 200 in appearance 500 demonstrated, his Leicester City career has been characterised by longevity rather than one remarkable season. Fans of other clubs remember him primarily for 2016, but he scored in the Champions League in 2017, played in the World Cup in 2018, won the Golden Boot in 2020 and, of course, the FA Cup in 2021.
Rebekah and the kids deserved their lap of honour as much as the man himself. Family has clearly kept him on the straight and narrow and helped him achieve all that he has. We may prefer one or two destinations to others but we couldn’t possibly begrudge Jamie Vardy any success in the future, whichever shirt he might be wearing. A million quid or so well spent.
There were other goodbyes as the final home game of the season came to a close. The underused Facundo Buonanotte. The overused Danny Ward. The unused Daniel Iversen. And the ones we don’t know about yet. Will we see Wilfred Ndidi again? Mads Hermansen? Bilal El Khannouss? Jeremy Monga?
There wasn’t space for much thought or consideration for any of that. We had enough on our plate trying to process the fact we’ll never see Jamie Vardy in a Leicester City shirt again. It’s been a pleasure. It’s been more than that. It’s been the time of our lives.