Leicester City In 100 Players: Andy King
Andy King is the only player in the Premier League era to have won the title in the top three tiers of English football while playing for the same club. When he won his 50th cap for Wales in 2018, he broke the Club record for the most international caps won while playing for the Foxes (a total since surpassed by Kasper Schmeichel).
An attacking midfielder who scored some spectacular goals, Barnstable-born Andy played in the Foxes’ FA Premier Academy title-winning side in 2007. He made his senior debut at Molineux in October 2007. Two months later, he scored his first senior goal with a 35-yard effort against Southampton.
Relegated to League 1 in 2008, Andy missed only one game as Nigel Pearson’s side lifted the League 1 title a year later. He won the Young Player of the Season award and was nominated for both the Players’ Player of the Season and the Player of the Season awards. Already a Wales Under-19s and Under-21s international, he became a full Wales international at the end of the season.
He was a key member of the side which reached the Championship Play-Off Semi-Finals in 2010 and shared that season’s Player of the Season award with Jack Hobbs.
He was the Club’s top scorer with 16 goals the following season, when he scooped the Players’ Player of the Season award, and was selected for the PFA Championship Team of the Year.
Andy’s career was disrupted by injury in 2011/12, but in 2012/13, he established good midfield partnerships with Matty James and Danny Drinkwater as Pearson’s team reached the Play-Off Semi-Finals again before being cruelly defeated by Watford.
City returned to the Premier League in 2014 as Championship winners. When Andy scored his 54th league goal in April 2014, he broke the Club’s record for goals scored by a midfielder.
In April 2014, he kickstarted the Great Escape from relegation with his late winning goal against West Ham United. The following season, he made 25 appearances (16 as a substitute) in Leicester’s Premier League triumphant title-winning side and represented Wales in the EURO 2016 Semi-Final against Portugal.
This was followed by loan spells at Swansea City, Rangers, Derby County and Huddersfield Town. After playing 379 games and scoring 62 goals, Andy left Leicester in May 2020. After a spell at OH Leuven, he signed for Nigel Pearson’s Bristol City and made an emotional return to Leicester when the Robins visited Filbert Way earlier this season.