The house where Leicester won the Premier League Mark Wood
Star striker Jamie Vardy sells home where team-mates partied as soccer history was made
IT WAS the scene of a wild celebrations this time last year as Leicester City pulled off what has been called the greatest achievement in sporting history. The players went to the Melton Mowbray house of star striker Jamie Vardy to watch Chelsea against Tottenham on TV, the result of which would determine whether Leicester would win the Premier League, having narrowly escaped relegation only a year before.
Chelsea came back from two goals down to draw 2-2 – thereby handing the title to Leicester and prompting joyous scenes inside Vardy’s house, as well as outside, where fans had gathered.
But ironically, those celebrations, and the pictures of them that were beamed around the world, helped prompt Vardy’s decision to sell the eight-bedroom property, called Cloughmore House.
After the triumph, Jamie and his wife Rebekah found that everyone knew where they lived – and they no longer enjoyed the privacy they craved for their family.
In total, the couple have five children: Rebekah’s two, Megan, 11, and Taylor, seven, from previous relationships; Sofia, two, and baby Finley that Jamie and Rebekah have had together; and Jamie’s six- year- old daughter Ella from a previous relationship.
Although Jamie and Rebekah love the property and say it holds many precious memories, they have opted for more space away from prying eyes, putting Cloughmore House on the market for £1.25 million. ‘We were both sad to leave, but it was the right time,’ says Rebekah. ‘Sofia learnt to walk there, it was Finley’s first home and we planned our wedding from our kitchen.
‘We had some great times. Not to mention the Leicester history – and it’s where Jamie spent many hours talking through his life story to write his book, so it forms a big part of history for us.’
Jamie, 30, and Rebekah, 34, lived in Cloughmore House for nearly two years and completely refurbished it. ‘We think it’s a special all-round house,’ says Jamie. ‘It’s versatile and the rooms are a great size.’
The core of the house is its large openplan kitchen with its four-oven Aga. Other notable features include its two staircases, games room and garden room with woodburning stove.
Rebekah describes the pair’s choices for the interior decoration as ‘clean and simple – but most of all practical for the children’.
‘We don’t like things that are over-the-top or in-your-face,’ Jamie says. ‘We tend to stick with a neutral palette that is a reflection of calm,’ Rebekah adds.
The family have moved to a stone-built farmhouse near Grantham where they grow fruit and vegetables, and have chickens and a pig. But the couple’s love of growing their own produce started at Cloughmore. ‘We had a greenhouse and a vegetable patch where we grew potatoes, tomatoes and cucumbers,’ says Rebekah.
SHE adds: ‘We used to love being able to take the kids out on their bikes and Sofia in her pushchair, as in less than a ten-minute walk you are out in the countryside.’ Rebekah says the kitchen was always a popular room at Cloughmore House, for Jamie’s team-mates as well as for the Vardy family. ‘The kids and Jamie loved going round the island on their didicars. Saying that, so did Wes Morgan! The kids also loved seeing who could kick a football at mum and get away with it!’ But there’s one strike of a football witnessed at Cloughmore House that overshadows them all for Jamie, and it happened in May last year. ‘ Eden Hazard, top bin,’ he says. ‘I think most football fans will know what that means!’