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Emile Heskey's generous donation helped save the current Premier League leaders

Currently sitting eight points clear atop the Barclays Premier League table as the unlikeliest of...



Emile Heskey's generous do...
Soccer

Emile Heskey's generous donation helped save the current Premier League leaders

Currently sitting eight points clear atop the Barclays Premier League table as the unlikeliest of title favourites, its easy to forget that things weren't so rosy at the club just a few years ago.

One player who hasn't forgotten those times is former English international Emile Heskey, who revealed he once gave the club £100,000 in order to save them from administration. 

The former English international began his career at the club, scoring 46 goals in 194 appearances before moving onto Liverpool in 2000 after six years with the Foxes. 

However, even after moving away from Leicester, he never fell out of love with his boyhood club, and he failed to stand idly by as the club fell into administration, giving the six figure donation in the 2002/03 season.

Steve Mitchell / EMPICS Sport

“The club was going down a road nobody wanted to see. It was something I had to do. I wasn’t looking for anything from it," Heskey told the Daily Star. 

“If it wasn’t for this club would I be what I am or have done what I have achieved? Everything that happened for me is down to me starting here as a little kid.

“I just felt it was something I had to do and, in all fairness, I thought a few more people would do it as well. But maybe they just didn’t have the same deep feeling as me.”

“I just gave it unconditionally because of my love for the club. They were in a bad way. It was desperate. It was sad to see the club I played for and went to cup finals with in such a terrible state.

“I was a ball boy at Filbert Street and I went to playing at the old Wembley with my parents watching. Everything about what happened for me – the 5-1 win with England in Germany - was all down to starting here.

Steve White / EMPICS Sport

That all seems a very, very long time ago now as Leicester are odds on favourites to lift the Premier League trophy by the end of the season, and Heskey is loving every second of it. 

“The buzz around the city is incredible. People are starting to believe this fairytale could have a very happy ending.

“The last game of the season is at Chelsea. You couldn’t make that up.

“Imagine if Leicester came out there to a guard of honour from the team that were champions the previous season?

“Now that is the kind of thing you read about in fairytales isn’t it?”

“What’s happening at this club is great, just great. That’s not just this season but what happened at the end of last season," he added. 

 

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