http://www.o-posts.net/news/teams/u...=Feed: O-posts-news (O-Posts - Football News) Good luck Bruno .....
I'm sick of having to defend Heskey to fans of other clubs. After the 2010 World Cup it sickened me the amount of stick he got when compared to the likes of Rooney, supposedly the best player in that team, yet was piss poor, had the audacity to criticise the fans and then it was Heskey, who had at least put the effort in (I remember him being the only player trying after Algeria) was forced to retire. Good luck in your career in Australia, let's hope there they can respect an honest, hard-working footballer there! (If not there's always Aussie rules or a second-row slot!) Sorry to go off on one, just feeling a bit pissed off and felt like a rant...
With you there .. worked in London for two years and more than once came close to a dust-up whilst watching England matches in pubs where some total tool who had no real understanding of the game made some banal comment about Bruno when others were total cack and the real problem ...
Make that three. Actually, one of the only people that agreed with me about Heskey was a Forest fan. The majority of people don't understand his true value.
He's a player who was never going to win over everyone but at least he stayed out of all those negative headlines unlike Giggs, Terry, Rooney etc. Anyway he was very generous to us and I'll always have him as one of our very own legends.
I recall a conversation with a Liverpool fan at work - a fan of Emile's - who was convinced some of the panning he's had throughout his career, especially at England level, was racially motivated. As far as I could tell, the England team was always better when Heskey did play! For my part, EH was always a model professional. And I'll never forget when he burst into the first team in our promotion year and started scaring the wits out of defences throughout the Premier League. Good luck Emile.
I don't think it was racial motivated. Simply that for a striker, he didn't score enough goals. The fact that he set up more than his fair share over the years goes over the head of the average bloke in the pub.
I don't know whether he's been racially abused by our own fans, but I can think of several occasions in his career when Heskey has, wasn't there an away match in Croatia a few years back? Certainly it's still an issue for our black players, especially when playing abroad, (anyone remember that stuff with Peter Odemwingie a few years back) and would definitely knock my confidence as a player if it were to happen to me.
Perhaps I should have made my point more succinctly. While I don't think he ever received any racial abuse by fans, I think the implication was that had he been white he might not have attracted so much stick. Anyway, a fine player IMO and forever grateful he put his hand in his pocket to help out LCFC.
I still don't swallow that. There are very few strikers that have had so many England managers stick by them for so long with such a low goal return. That's because the managers, like those that actually watch the game rather than study stats, understood the importance of Heskey's role. I understand why people criticise Heskey and it's not because of racism - but they're still wrong.
Would have liked to see him back here, even if it was just behind the scenes or coaching, he has years worth of prem experience.
Heskey will return here someday. It wont be as a player now but I think he will come back in one capacity or another
Believe me, some of the clowns I heard criticising him were definitely motivated by more than mere footballing reasons ,..
