Fat Footballers: Emile Heskey
All of you probably already know Emile Heskey, a good black giant, that was one of the favourite strikers of one of the authors of this blog, so that he was used to buy him in his Master League Team of Pro Evolution Soccer: few days ago he watched a video about him (you can find it at the end of this post) and noticed that he was a perfect candidate for this column !
Emile was born in 1978, (he has just turned 36) to a family of Antiguan descent, and started playing football in the youth sector of Leicester City FC, the most important team in his hometown, and made his debut for the first team in 1995. He “was born” as central striker, but he has played in almost every attacking position, as offensive mildfielder too. The best part of his career had been from 1999 to 2004, when he had played for Liverpool FC, with whom he lifted the 2000/2001 UEFA Cup.
After leaving Liverpool FC, our man played for few low-middle table English clubs, such as: Birmingham City FC, Wigan Athletic FC and Aston Villa FC, but unluckly his goal scoring average started decreasing, while his weight started increasing. Despite that, he has been an English International until 2010 (he played 2010 World Cup as well), because England has never managed to find a Wayne Rooney‘s proper stable attacking partner, and Heskey, being tall and powerful, was one of the best options to form a complete pair with the short and fast striker.
Heskey has never been a top scorer, but he is a great assistman that loves holding the ball up, to actract defenders on him in order to create space behind himself for another player, to offer him a better chance to score, and, because of his generosity and uselfishness, he has become a fans’ favourite, so that Aston Villa FC supporters dedicated him a famous chant: “There’s only one Emile Heskey! One Emile Heskey! He used to be shite, but now is alright! Walking in Heskey Wonderland!” (you can find it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDbZ81JYKK4 ). But sometimes he has been mocked because of his weight (that currently is 92 Kg, being 1.88 m tall), and the previous chant was modified in this way: “There’s only one Emile Heskey! Fat Eddie Murphy!”.
In 2012, when he was 34, he decided not to continue his playing career in English lower divisions or in Premier League as a replacement, but to fly to Australia, where he signed a contract with Newcastle United Jets FC, whose fans welcomed him very warmly, in A-League (first level of Australian soccer pyramid). The first season was quite good (9 goals in 23 matches), but we can’t say the same thing about the current one, in which he hasn’t scored any goals yet after playing 12 games: we aren’t surprised about that after we have seen this video !
In his carrer he has won so far: 4 League Cups (2 with Leicester City FC, 2 with Liverpool FC), 1 FA Cups (with Liverpool FC), 1 FA Community Shield (with Liverpool FC), 1 UEFA Cup (with Liverpool FC) and 1 UEFA Super Cup (with Liverpool FC).
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