Is that a hint?! What Jamie Vardy said about how it feels to wear a Sheffield Wednesday shirt

The 33-year-old former Wednesday academy player is an Owl through and through and earlier this season celebrated a goal for Leicester against Sheffield United with a cheeky cupped-ear message to Blades fans giving him stick for his blue-half nature.

Vardy has spoken previously about what the club meant to him growing up, prompting speculation as to whether he might be tempted to finish his career at Hillsborough having been released without playing a senior game as a teenager.

Speaking to BT Sport, the 26-cap England man said on the sanctity of the Wednesday shirt: “It meant everything to me, being a Wednesday fan.

“That’s all I thought I was going to be back then, I thought I was going to be a Sheffield Wednesday player. It didn't work out that way, things take their own route for a reason and it was a setback which I had to use to better myself.

“Playing with the shirt on even at the academy growing up, it really did feel special that you supported the club.

Vardy grew up close to the stadium and looks back fondly at Wednesday’s role in kiskctarting his obsession with the game.

He said: “They were great times, being able to go to some of the games when I was younger, obviously, when you get older you realise just how much football means to everyone.

“Me and my mates used to play at the exit gates for the away fans at the stadium, I don’t think that went down too well – they had to re-paint it every so often! But it was just about playing as much as you can.”

On the Sheffield derby and that celebration, Vardy said: “It’s massive and it was always good when they were paying each other. The atmosphere they get it really good and people just live for football. Games like that in Sheffield are massive, it’s bragging rights and everything like that.

“I was getting a bit of abuse so there was only one way I was going to celebrate. I think most of them took it in jest.”