First, a warning: don’t watch Untold: Jamie Vardy for any deep insight into what it’s like to be Jamie Vardy.
You won’t find hidden depths or tactical philosophy here. The documentary offers scant reflection on what it feels like to rise from non-league football to Premier League glory in just a few years. But do watch it, because Vardy’s story is extraordinary.
That's not to say he's a thicko, either. Many think him a genius, and I agree. His brains are just in his feet.
Watching the documentary, I kept thinking about a line from David Foster Wallace’s essay “How Tracy Austin Broke My Heart”: “Those who receive and act out the gift of athletic genius must, perforce, be blind and dumb about it – and not because blindness and dumbness are the price of the gift, but because they are its essence.”
In other words, for athletes like Vardy, thinking can be the difference between scoring and putting it wide; between an ace and a double fault; hitting a birdy or a bogey. Conscious thought is the elite sportsman's mortal enemy.
Which may explain why much of that responsibility appears to have been delegated to his wife, Rebekah (more on her later).
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But what else did we learn from Untold: Jamie Vardy? Here are six key lessons from the film.
1 | Jamie Vardy is 'a twat'
Not my words! They’re Jamie Vardy’s. In the opening scenes of the film, various talking heads are asked to describe Vardy in one word. They reel off a list of attributes including goals, aggression, loyal, friend and legend.
Then we cut to Vardy himself, sat at home with Netflix’s production team… and he is thinking. Then: “One word?” he clarifies, adding simply: “I’d probably think 'twat'.”
It’s an endearing moment. It reveals he might not be the knuckle-dragging lager lout the media have so often made him out to be.
Then we’re shown footage of some vintage Vardian shithousery – winding up opposition fans, doing funny goal celebrations, slide-tackling a corner flag so hard it snaps.
Cut to former Leicester teammate Marc Albrighton: “People see a wind-up merchant, teasing opposition fans. But there’s so much more to him than all of that.”
That’s our cue to strap in and wait for Netflix to prove Albrighton’s point.
2 | Jamie's mates call themselves The Inbetweeners
Throughout the documentary, we pop in and out of the pub to visit a group of Vardy’s childhood friends – a band of booze brothers who get progressively pissed and tell stories of the cocky lad from Sheffield. Most of them involve drinking. There’s plenty of banter, laughter, nothing deep or serious. At one point, one of them pulls his pants down to reveal a tattoo of Vardy’s signature on his bum cheek – presumably the happy ending of a drunken bet.
It’s another charming thing about Vardy, that he’s still close to his old drinking pals, and we are left in no doubt that they love each other very much. Also: he buys the beers.
When asked why they call themselves the Inbetweeners, they answer straightforwardly: “After the TV show. Look at us – we’re a bunch of oddballs, aren’t we?”
Later, Rebekah Vardy offers a different take: “This group of lads are not a normal group of lads. They are mental cases, like yobs.”
3 | Jamie's favourite tipple is homemade Skittles Vodka
It’s made clear that Vardy had a serious problem with alcohol in his early career. This not-altogether-surprising revelation is preceded by a cutaway to fans singing the famous chant: “Jamie Vardy’s having a party, bring your vodka and your charlie.”
We hear stories of 36-hour benders, and that – when he had a day job – his nickname was Sick Note. “I was very good at having Mondays off,” he laughs.
Later, one ex-teammate reveals he was particularly fond of hooching his own Skittles vodka. “He’d sit at home with a bottle of Belvedere and just tip packets of Skittles in the top and leave it there to dissolve,” says the friend. “He’d say, ‘oh it tastes just like Skittles.’ It didn’t. It tasted horrific.”
Fortunately, Vardy saw sense and – thanks to the arrival of what he calls “my angel” – curbed his drinking… at least enough to save his career.
Though, it seems his tastes have evolved. Now he drinks Modelo lager, which he request a producer fetch from the fridge. Then he asks to be handed “the big wooden cock” – a bottle opener whittled into the shape of an erect penis.
4 | Jamie didn’t win the league for Leicester… Rebekah did!
I’d really like to know how much influence Rebekah Vardy had over the deal between Netflix and Jamie. Based on the information available, I’m guessing: a lot.
She features heavily throughout the film, presented as part wife, part project manager of Jamie Vardy™. Which feels fair, to be fair.
According to Rebekah, when they met, Vardy was drinking too much, doubting himself and in danger of sabotaging his own career. She describes sitting him down for long therapeutic conversations about self-belief and discipline. “I was like, why do you doubt yourself so much…" she says, adding "And we talked for hours and hours and it was like therapy for him."
Cut to Wes Morgan, Leicester captain: “He emerged as the player that really could be the spark for the team.”
The editing leaves you with the clear impression that Leicester’s title-winning season was achieved through a combination of heart, counter-attacking football, Claudio Ranieri and Rebekah Vardy – a twelfth man in the wings, guiding Jamie to be the man Leicester needed him to be.
The film keeps reinforcing this dynamic in tiny ways. At one point she interrupts filming with an enormous sneeze and Vardy immediately stops mid-answer to bless her. Later, she cuts across an interview to powder down a shiny patch on his face.
5 | Not even Jamie knows what ‘Chat Shit Get banged’ means
“I’ve no idea why I wrote it, I’ve no idea when I wrote it – I’ve literally not got a Scooby-Do,” says Vardy.
Hmmm. Well, his agent offers a deeper explanation for the mysterious Facebook that shot Vardy to something near cult status: “It was a normal night out for Jamie and the lads. Somebody chatted shit and somebody got banged.”
Sorted. Moving on.
6 | Jamie’s brains definitely are in his feet
The documentary may not go deep, but it does go far, covering many of the most famous controversies that coloured Vardy’s career. One of them is the night he was caught on a casino’s CCTV calling a man a “Jap”.
It sparked a racism row, a public apology and a stint in diversity awareness training. “I thought it was just an abbreviation of Japan,” he explains, all doe-eyed innocence.
I’m sorry, no: this doesn’t wash. Vardy was not innocently identifying a man’s nationality for him, he was reaching for a slur in anger. He knew it was insulting – otherwise he would not have said it in such circumstances. It’s not like he was describing the make of a car or a bottle of whiskey. He was trying to offend someone who had read his poker cards over his shoulder and tipped off his opponents.
His brains may be in his feet, but not even feet are that stupid.
Talking of which, it isn’t just me saying that's where his brains lie. As he says at the end of the film: “I’m a firm believer that your legs will tell you when they’re done.”
A philosopher? Perhaps not. A goalscorer, unquestionably.
Untold: Jamie Vardy is streaming on Netflix now
