JAMIE VARDY. Tyson Fury. Two British athletes who made headlines for the right reasons on Saturday night.

Vardy’s opener against Manchester United saw him break the Premier League record of scoring in consecutive games which was held by United’s own Ruud van Nistelrooy.

The Leicester striker now stands on his own at 11 and will hope to increase the achievement by making it 12 this weekend when the Foxes take on Swansea.

As for Fury, he defied the odds and won the heavyweight world title, beating Wladimir Klitschko in Dusseldorf.

Fury went into the fight undefeated but was still considered the underdog.

So his victory was seen as a monumental achievement, not only for the 27-year-old but for British boxing.

But the way the media has portrayed the two athletes in the aftermath has been fascinating. Vardy has been hailed an inspiration, with talks of a film being made about his story, while Fury has been labelled a bigot.

For those that don’t know, Vardy was playing non-league football a few years ago and is now an England international and the top-scorer in the Premier League.

It is a wonderful example of how if you keep on trying, regardless of how old you are, you can make your dreams come true.

But somewhere along the lines, it seems to have been forgotten that in the summer Vardy was in trouble with the club for allegedly racially abusing a Japanese man.

I wrote at the time about how the club should handle the situation, they should release him and send out the message that racists will not be allowed at the club.

It wasn’t a far-fetched opinion as they had dismissed three youth players a few weeks prior for racially abusing a Thai woman during an orgy, while the Foxes were on a goodwill tour of the country.

One of the players was the son of then manager Nigel Pearson but Vardy was allowed to stay. I pointed out that this was due to the fact that he was actually valuable to the squad, though no-one could have foreseen how much of an impact he would go on to make.

But regardless, he shouldn’t have been allowed to make history at Leicester let alone break into the England squad. And the fact that he is now being pushed as a role model to younger kids says a lot about the state of football in 2015.

Many pundits are saying that Vardy must go to the Euro’s next summer, like they had developed amnesia over the past six months.

This isn’t surprising as all last season, the same journalists were calling for John Terry to be reinstated into the England squad. The reason he is no longer part of the national team set-up? The FA found him guilty of racially abusing then QPR defender Anton Ferdinand. You can see the similarities.

However, there are some journalists and fans who have not forgotten about Vardy’s racist past and have spoken out against all the love he has received in the past few weeks.

Alex Netherton’s brilliant blog on Yahoo pointed out: “As Vardy ran to celebrate his goal against Manchester United, he said, ‘Me, me, it’s all fucking me.’ Not his teammates, not the fans, not his manager. It’s all him,” and then goes on to compare the English striker’s actions to those of Luis Suarez, saying: “We often ask ourselves why England doesn’t produce players of the quality of Suarez. Now England has its own goalscoring, abusive narcissist.

Well done everyone.”

Jonathan Liew took to Facebook to explore the four main reasons Vardy supporters use to justify why he should be forgiven. They are: “Who Cares?,” “Calling someone a ‘Jap’ isn’t racist. It’s just like calling someone a ‘Brit’,” “It was just a drunken mistake. We all make mistakes. It was one comment, one time. Let it go,” and “He’s apologised, been fined, been sent on a diversity awareness course, and genuinely seems a changed person. Give him a break.”

But no-one was saying that about Suarez when he told Patrice Evra what he really thought about him. People wanted him banished from football.

There were no breaks, second chances or people saying it was a mistake.

Vardy’s usefulness to the England team put him above the law in some eyes. Are they that desperate to for England to succeed?

As for Fury, I didn’t realise he made homophobic comments until after he won the world title.

Fury said in an interview with the Mail on Sunday last month: ‘There are only three things that need to be accomplished before the devil comes home: one of them is homosexuality being legal in countries, one of them is abortion and the other one’s paedophilia.

“Who would have thought in the ’50s and ’60s that those first two would be legalised?”

And when it was pointed out to him that people will find his views on homophobia “uncomfortable” he replied: “This is a funny world we live in and an evil world. People can say: ‘Oh, you are against abortions, you are against paedophilia, you are against homosexuality, you’re against whatever,’ but my faith and my culture is all based on the bible.

“The bible was written a long time ago, from the beginning of time until now, and if I follow that and it tells me it’s wrong, then it’s wrong for me. That’s just my opinion.”

Maybe I missed the news in the days after the interview was published.

Perhaps I was bombarded with so many news stories and interviews about the inspirational Vardy that Fury’s comment slipped under the radar.

Or perhaps journalists and pundits didn’t see the need to kick up a real fuss because there was no way he was going to win.

Why draw attention to the homophobic ramblings from a boxer who is known for his twisted and strange conferences.

But it should have been flagged up. It should have been the start of every article. Should Fury have been given a title shot given what he had said? That should have been the news in the build up to the fight.

Instead, people kicked up a fuss after he had won. One Times journalist rightfully points out that: “Fury brings a particular brand of nastiness that appeared to have been lost amid the backslapping on Saturday evening.” But where was that a few weeks ago?

The bigger, and more confusing question, is why has Fury’s achievement been met with a backdrop of scorn and disgust while Vardy has received adulation? No-one talks about making a Fury movie.

People pick and choose their heroes and every story needs a villain. It seems Fury drew the short-straw on the night he sang to his wife that he doesn’t “want to miss a thing.”

He may want to miss the stories that he woke up to Sunday morning.