The inside story of Jamie Vardy’s time at FC Halifax Town - ten years on
“HE IS one who the supporters will like,” said FC Halifax Town boss Neil Aspin upon the signing of Jamie Vardy in June 2010.
Just over a year later, after 28 goals in 41 games, the club’s player of the year was gone, but certainly not forgotten.
The Shaymen won the Northern Premier League Premier Division title by 19 points that season, scoring 108 league goals.
Few observers at The Shay that campaign could have predicted the career Vardy would go on to have, but there is no doubt his season-and-a-bit with Halifax helped set the striker on the road to superstardom.
Watching him once for Stocksbridge against a Sheffield United youth team was enough to convince Aspin that Halifax had to sign him.
“David (Bosomworth, Halifax chairman) went to watch him, because he knew he was going to have to pay a fee and he wanted to see him for himself,” Aspin recalls.
“I remember him ringing me up after the game, and basically said ‘what the hell have you sent me here to watch him for, he’s only scored a couple, made a couple, hit the bar and absolutely ran them ragged’, so he knew then that we had to sign him.”
”Neil used to tell a story of when he went to watch him play and he got sent-off after 10 minutes,” says former Town captain Mark Bower, “and half the crowd got up and left because they were all scouts.”
But Town took the plunge, paying a fee of £16,000 according to Aspin, to bring him to The Shay.
It wasn’t all plain sailing at the start of the campaign, with just nine points from the opening six games.
But The Shaymen won their next ten games in a row as their march to the title turned into a sprint.
The key to many of Town’s successes was to get the ball to Vardy out wide and let his pace do the rest.
“He’d stepped up to a bigger club in a higher league but he took to it and he was getting better and better as the season went on,” says Aspin.
“I remember another game at Frickley, early in the season, and I think he had about four or five chances and he didn’t score, but his pace got him into those positions. By the end of the season, his finishing had certainly improved.”
”Jamie could replicate his speed from the first minute to the last,” says former Town defender Liam Hogan.
“There might be games where he was quiet but because of the explosiveness ..... he was aggressive in closing defenders down, he didn’t give them time or space.”
”I remember him playing a lot off the left-hand side and coming in on his right foot, and utilising his pace,” says Bower.
““I remember one game at North Ferriby, I think they had a few injuries and played a young right-back, and I’ve rarely seen a player absolutely dismantle another one in the way Vardy did to that poor young kid that day, he absolutely ran him ragged.
“You almost felt sorry for the lad, even though you were playing against him.”
“He had a good football brain, he knew when he picked the ball up what he was going to do,” says Aspin. “Pace was his main asset but he was very, very tenacious. if somebody kicked him, he would kick them back. If somebody tried to upset him, it didn’t bother him.
“He had a real desire to win, his work rate was tremendous and he’s never changed.”
“He was absolutely unbelievable,” says ex-Town keeper Jonathan Hedge. “We won a lot of games comfortably that year, mainly down to him.”
Vardy fitted seamlessly into the squad off the pitch too.
“He was very, very outgoing,” says ex Town midfielder Tom Baker. “Never kept still, never stopped talking, just 100 mile an hour in everything that he did.
“The way he played - all action, in your face, quick - was how he was off the pitch.”
”He was just relentless,” says Hedge. “He’d turn up and have one or two cans of Red Bull, and he didn’t need them. I think he still does it now before games. He’d drink it and he’d be even more hyper than he was than normal. He just loved being around the lads, and he loved being on a football pitch.”
Vardy’s influence seemed to grow as the season went on. He scored four of Town’s first 41 goals that season, but then netted 21 of their next 62 goals, laying on several others.
“For the first few months he wasn’t the star player,” says Aspin, “but then as the season continued he then became the star player.”
“If we were ever in doubt, we’d give him the ball or Asp would move him up top, because he played out wide quite often,” says Hedge. “He knew that, purely down to his raw pace, that he’d get in-behind and get chances. You knew he was going to go on to the next level.”
”There were lots of scouts ringing me up, asking about him,” says Aspin. “I knew he was going to go, it was just a matter of when.”
“He played in-front of me and he was a dream for me,” says ex Town defender Danny Lowe. “If you got the ball you’d just give it to him! “He worked hard though. Some people come in with that talent and toss it off and think they can swan through games, but he had a completely different mentality to that, he worked as hard as anyone, got stuck in, cared as much as anyone.”
Vardy nearly completed what would have been a remarkable hat-trick of hattricks in March, scoring three against Chasetown and Kendal - becoming the first Halifax player to score back-to-back hat-tricks since Clem Smith in 1945 - before netting twice against Nantwich.
It was also around this time that assistant manager Trevor Storton passed away after an illness. Storton died the day after Vardy bagged a hat-trick - including the goal of the season to win it deep into stoppage time against Chasetown at the Shay. ”That was a really, really enjoyable season, probably the most enjoyable season of the lot,” says Aspin. “The only sour note was when Trevor died. He was such a lovely bloke, really popular with the players. That was the only downside to what was a fantastic season.”
Vardy scored three goals in four games the following campaign, but there was only so long The Shaymen could hold onto their most-prized asset, who joined Fleetwood in August 2011.
“He had absolutely everything you’d want as a football player,” says Baker.
“He had every attribute, he could do everything. He was as good with his left foot as he was with his right, you genuinely didn’t know which foot was his strongest. He could strike a ball, he could do it with both feet, he was lightning quick, unbelievable in the air.
“He ticked every single box to be a professional footballer.”
”What stands out for me was the first game of the season against Buxton,” says Aspin, “and I remember him being out wide, he took the ball, nutmegged the defender, cut in and bent the ball just past the post.
“The skill he showed to do that was absolutely tremendous, it really was, and I just thought ‘this lad’s got something special’.
“And he went on to prove it.”