Leicester City were eventual beneficiaries from bizarre Stockport County transfer stance: View | OneFootball

In 2011, Stockport County were weighing up the potential of launching a bid for Halifax Town striker Jamie Vardy, but the results of a Twitter poll led them to abandon the move.

It was a time when football clubs were still adjusting to the use of social media and this tale was likely enough to keep transfer decisions away from the timeline in the future.

The choice was between striker George Donnelly, who had recently been on loan at Edgeley Park, or the up-and-coming Vardy, who had been impressing at Halifax.

The fans chose Donnelly. Vardy would go on to command a six-figure fee, win the Premier League and FA Cup, be capped by England and social media would be binned as a recruitment consultant.

The idea was led by former club director Tony Evans, who wanted to include the fans when deciding on which striker to attempt to sign.

Posting to his followers, Evans reportedly tweeted: “I wanted to hear your views. If we could sign one of them who would it be....Vardy or Georgie?”

The overwhelming choice was Donnelly, who had scored four in 19 appearances at the end of the 2009/10 season and notched a further eight in 23 appearances in a second spell the season after.

Against the relatively unknown and inexperienced Vardy, it was an obvious call.

Having collected the results, Evans tweeted: [manager Dietmar Hamann] wants him."

As it transpired, Donnelly's club at the time, Fleetwood Town, had a higher valuation for the striker than County and a deal could not be struck.

Donnelly would end up moving to Macclesfield that summer, while Fleetwood would seek to replace him with none other than Vardy himself, for £150,000.

Deal could have turned fortunes both on and off the pitch

Vardy made waves in the Blue Square Premier, now the National League, that season, scoring 31 goals in 36 league games and catapulting the Fishermen to the Football League for the first time in their history.

To add insult to injury, Vardy went on to score one of those 31 goals against County, the winner for Fleetwood, in a 2-1 victory at Highbury Stadium.

County finished that season in 16th place and likely could have used the Vardy goals that secured the league title for Fleetwood.

Not only did the Hatters miss out on a productive forward for the season but they also passed up the chance to turn a quick profit in much shakier financial times at Edgeley Park.

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Nobody could have predicted Vardy's path

It will never be known whether a successful bid would have been tabled had the vote gone the other way, but it may go down as one of the most expensive Twitter polls ever.

In hindsight, it looks like a wild move to allow fans to decide transfer policy using social media and it looks worse knowing what Vardy went on to do but in reality, it was just a slightly ill-conceived attempt at fan inclusion.

Very few people in 2011 would have predicted that Vardy would go on to become a Premier League winner with Leicester just five years later.

So rare is his story and path into elite-level football, any striker operating successfully in the lower divisions now will quickly adopt the 'next Vardy' tag.

Alongside major trophy collections, Vardy went on to earn 26 caps with England, appear over 300 times in the Premier League, and lead the line for Leicester in the Champions League, Europa League, and Conference League. Indeed, Leicester were certainly the beneficiaries of Stockport allowing Fleetwood a clear path to their future club legend.

No scout in the world could have spotted his full potential while he was operating up-front for Halifax Town, but, knowing what we know now, at least it will serve as a lesson to trust the experts in the future, not social media.