Back in January, you probably didn’t expect Leicester City to win the Premier League.
You probably didn’t even expect them to finish in the top four, after a goalless draw with Bournemouth had them seven points ahead of fifth-placed Manchester United with 18 games remaining.
Still, you probably wouldn’t have pledged to get the words ‘chat shit, get banged’ tattooed on your arse cheek if Jamie Vardy and Co somehow did achieve the unthinkable.
But you’re not Devan Slater.
Devan, a 20-year-old Spurs fan from Scunthorpe, made his bold prediction on the eve of the Foxes’ FA Cup third round meeting with Tottenham. Four months on, with Leicester crowned champions, he went through with his pledge.
SportsJOE caught up with him to get the full story.
https://twitter.com/DevanSlater/status/730080580797370369
“When I sent the original tweet I was discussing with a few friends how next week Leicester would slip up or the week after they’d crumble but it never seemed to happen,” he explains.
“Fair play to LCFC they do deserve the title for how they’ve played this season, Week after week I would tell myself this is when they’ll start to drop off, start to lose games but It just never happened.”
While others might have chickened out when Leicester closed in on the title, there was never much danger of Devan doing the same.
“I think you’d struggle to find anyone who actually wants “Chat shit get banged” & a bottle of blue WKD on their arse cheek, but with my group of mates if I backed out it would have been 10 times worse for me in the long run, they’d never let me live it down,” he says.
It's that man again pic.twitter.com/D7t0PGN4tk
— SportsJOE (@SportsJOE_UK) April 17, 2016
He’s not sure if Vardy is aware of the ink at this stage – in fairness, the England striker and his club team-mates have been fairly busy of late.
But after Sunday’s Premier League finale at Stamford Bridge, Leicester’s players will have a bit more time on their hands to see what they’ve been missing out on while focusing on the most unlikely title charge in decades.
And while it might be a long-shot (albeit not as long as Leicester’s 5,000/1 title odds), Devan already has a plan in place on the off-chance that Vardy himself gets wind of the bet.
“Me and a few friends joked about Jamie Vardy viewing the tattoo and I thought it would never be possible but I never expected this response from it,” he adds.
“I said to my mates If he did see it I’d ask if he wouldn’t mind putting his signature below the tattoo, hopefully that could one day be arranged and I could have Jamie’s signature tattooed on me as well.”
Beyond the initial impact (“having to sit down 9 hours a day wasn’t fun the day after”), the attention has largely been positive.
Devan notes that “a lot of good-looking women have seen my arse on Twitter,” while plenty of people have applauded him for actually going through with his pledge.
And looking to the future, he’s happy to have a great story to tell his kids or grandkids a few decades down the line.
He has no plans to get it removed, at least not until he’s had the chance to meet Vardy and potentially fulfil part two of his tattoo masterplan.
“It’s a funny story and a great talking point, and because Leicester winning the league is such a fairytale story its also something for me to remember it by and something to say as it is one of the greatest things that has happened in English football in a long long time,” Devan explains.
“When I’m older the chances are I’ll regret my actions but we all do dumb stuff when we’re young and I guess that’s part of being young really.
“I think when I get to my 50’s & 60’s I’ll still enjoy it as much as I do today as It’ll be a good memory for me to look back on and remember the stupid stuff I did when I was young.”
