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Your support makes all the difference.England striker Jamie Vardy used to turn up to Leicester City training "still drunk" when he first moved to the Foxes, a vice-chairman of the club has claimed.
Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabha has told a magazine in his native Thailand that the striker, who has scored 22 Premier League goals for the Champions, did not know what to do with his new-found wealth after moving to the club from non-League.
Nigel Pearson paid £1million to bring Vardy up three divisions after he scored 34 goals for Conference Premier side Fleetwood town in 2011-12.
But Vardy, now 29 and likely to head to Euro 2016, is said to have struggled to adapt to life in the Championship.
He is said to have been out drinking "every single day" and has been warned a number of times about his conduct, especially after the racist incident at the start of the season.
"He went straight from the bottom to the Championship, which eventually led him to start drinking booze every single day. We had no idea what to do," Srivaddhanaprabha told A Day magazine in Thailand.
"I didn’t even know about this until someone told me that he came to train while he was still drunk.
"So I went to talk to him myself, I asked 'do you wish to end your career like this? Do you want to stay here like this? We’ll let your contract run out then release you. Don’t expect a better career path.'
"He said he didn’t know what to do with his life. He’d never earned such a large amount of money. So I asked him 'what’s your dream?
“‘How do you think your life should be? Just think carefully about what would you do for the club. I invested in you, do you have something in return?'
"After that he simply quit drinking and started working hard in training. His physicality wasn’t as good as it is now.
"We know he had explosive acceleration, but we simply had no idea he could be this good.
"He’s adapting, working on fitness training, he’s turned into a new person. And that’s better."
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