Jamie Vardy: From Nowhere, My Story

Apr 18, 2025 9:02 PM

Author:Jamie Vardy

The Sunday Times Bestseller and Number 1 Sport Book of 2016

'A tale that's truly inspirational' The Sun

An ordinary lad from Sheffield, Jamie Vardy has become known as an against-the-odds footballing hero the world over. Yet a few years ago, things couldn’t have been any more different. Rejected as a teenager by his boyhood club, Jamie thought his chance was gone. But from playing pub football and earning £30 a week at Stocksbridge Park Steels, while still working in a factory, his off-the-cuff performances saw him rise.

Jamie had a wild and turbulent youth, but football became his saving grace and, once he filled his boots with goals at FC Halifax Town and Fleetwood Town, he moved to Leicester City. After the miracle of surviving relegation, the team of unlikely outsiders bonded together to achieve the unthinkable: Jamie set the record as the first player to score in 11 consecutive Premier League matches and Leicester beat odds of 5000-1 to become champions.

Jamie has now been nominated for the Ballon d’Or, firmly establishing himself as one of England’s leading goal scoring footballers. Not forgetting his roots, however, he has set up the V9 Academy in a bid to find the next big talent from non-league football. Defying all expectations, this is the story of the boy from nowhere who reached the top in his own unflinching, honest words.

Reviews

Jamie Vardy’s searingly honest warts and all account of his rise from football’s lowest foothills to the Premier League summit has been the talk of football.

—— Sean Hamilton , The Sun

Maconie’s book is not only a heartfelt tribute to Wilkinson and the marchers, but a reaffirmation of the role of the personal within the political, and a rallying call for anyone stirred by the story of Jarrow

—— The Observer

With yet another conservative government refusing to budge it is hard to avoid Maconie’s conclusion that persuading the uncommitted is as vital as ever

—— New Statesman

The result is this rich, evocative book. Part travelogue, part history, part examination of a nation in flux. It is all a delight ****

—— Mail on Sunday, EVENT Magazine

Footsore in spacetime, hiking simultaneously through memory and landscape, in Long Road from Jarrow Stuart Maconie shadows the defiant, desperate and dignified crusade of 1936 through a modern world where everything has changed except for the austerity, the poverty, the national and global instability, the worrying ascendancy of fascism, and the resilient decency of ordinary people. This is a necessary book; a necessary journey through English identity, and one which you’ll be glad that you embarked on. Now, yes, now is the hour.

—— Alan Moore

An insightful impassioned and witty voyage through Brexit Britain that serves as both travelogue and social commentary

—— Waitrose Weekend

This unique perspective contains some nice stories.

—— Sport

A beautiful testament to the unique perspective offered by life high in the branches

—— Bruce Parry, award-winning documentary film-maker and author

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