Leicestershire

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Thirteen years, 500 appearances and 200 goals ago, Jamie Vardy arrived at Leicester City as a record-breaking g.

He became the first £1m non-league footballer when he was brought to the King Power Stadium from Fleetwood in 2012.

The second episode of BBC Radio Leicester's podcast series – Havin' a party: The Jamie Vardy story – focuses on how the striker came to grips with the huge step up with Leicester City.

He leapt from the fifth tier of English football to the second when he ed the then Championship side.

Vardy's former Foxes team-mates Neil Danns, Gary Taylor-Fletcher, Conrad Logan as well as ex-goalkeeping coach Mike Stowell and a number of ers share their memories of what it was like to see the forward get used to life in the Championship before taking the step up to the Premier League in 2014.

Marc Albrighton, who played alongside Vardy when Leicester won the Premier League title and FA Cup in later years, is co-host of the podcast and talks about the Foxes' narrow escape from relegation in 2015 and how it would set them up for future glories.

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From international debuts to first goals for their countries, here's what you might have missed over the weekend.

Leicester City midfielder Kasey McAteer scored his first goal for the Republic of Ireland on Friday in what was his maiden start for the side.

The Foxes academy graduate got on the end of the goalkeeper's parry to put his side ahead before Senegal equalised in the 82nd minute for a 1-1 draw.

Ipswich Town midfielder Jack Taylor also made his first international start for the Republic in the friendly.

Nineteen-year-old Birmingham City Under-21s player Menzi Mazwi made his debut for Zimbabwe during their 2-0 loss to South Africa in the COSAFA Cup on Saturday, coming on as a substitute in the 77th minute.

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With the Jamie Vardy party at Leicester City now over, the striker's remarkable journey to becoming the greatest Foxes goalscorer of all time has been chronicled by BBC Radio Leicester.

Former winger Marc Albrighton, who won the Premier League title and lifted the FA Cup alongside the England forward, s Leicester City commentator Owynn Palmer-Atkin in hosting the five-part series.

Episode one starts at the beginning of Vardy's remarkable football journey and the disappointment of being released by boyhood club Sheffield Wednesday as a teenager.

His time playing for a college team after that was followed by a life-shaping spell at Stocksbridge Park Steels – where he played for six months with an electronic tag on his ankle after being convicted of assault.

A 6:00pm curfew that was also imposed on Vardy meant the first two occasions that Neil Aspin went to try watch the forward during his time as Halifax boss, he wasn't there because both matches were evening kick-offs.

"From first seeing him, I knew he was a player we had to sign," Aspin said.

It cost the West Yorkshire club £15,000 to get a player that would go on to score 145 Premier League goals and net seven times in 26 internationals for England.

Aspin also tells the story of Vardy coming close to scoring a hat-trick of hat-tricks in one week of his one season with Halifax, which earned him a move to then non-league side Fleetwood Town.

It was his golden-boot winning exploits with the Cod Army, which helped them win promotion to the English Football League for the first time in 2011-12, that made Vardy the first non-league player to cost £1m when he then ed Championship club Leicester.

Steve Walsh, Leicester City's former head of recruitment, talks about how they landed the future star's signature when Southampton had also been "in for him".