Even Heskey Scored by Emile Heskey

Author:Emile Heskey
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pitch Publishing
Published: 2019-03-14T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINE

Out of the Bubble … in to Birmingham

I ALWAYS envisaged that I would move back home to Leicester, or at least closer to home, so when I signed for Birmingham and lived initially in the city centre and then moved to Meriden, I thought I would be happy there; close to a big city and my work, near to my family in Leicester. I thought I would end up back in Leicester one day too and bring my family up there. It’s funny how things change though. I felt like I belonged in the North West, which, when you think about how I was at Liverpool at the start, in tears and feeling alone, is some turnaround. I couldn’t wait to get started at Blues though. I was buzzing to be playing for another club, and to face another challenge.

Liverpool was huge, and with all respect to Birmingham, it’s a completely different sized club. That meant there was an onus on me to deliver with goals and performances; a different kind of pressure. At Liverpool, the standards were so high that if you didn’t perform, you would be dropped without a second thought. At Birmingham, people were now looking towards me as the main signing, the guy to turn to if we needed something to happen. It was similar to how I felt at Leicester at the start of my career.

Steve Bruce was great. He came to my house, made me feel welcome and offered to support me in whatever way he could. I appreciated that. He’d showed huge faith in me, paying around £6m to bring me to the club, so he’d banked a lot on me being a success. The facilities were similar to Leicester and it turned out to be a breath of fresh air for me. I was away from the scrutiny of Liverpool and that relentless pressure, day after day. I felt good. I was free of the chains and able to get back to expressing myself. There was no magnifying glass on me anymore. No one was interested in me. I felt like the way that Birmingham played would suit my own style and my agent, Struan, wanted to protect me and spoke about the risks of them going down in my first season, making sure I knew what I was agreeing to. I was adamant that we wouldn’t. I hadn’t joined a club, expecting to be in any kind of relegation battle. I was so confident I could help Blues and improve them.

I loved seeing some familiar faces too. Sav was already at the club and then Muzzy signed from Leicester soon after I did. It was like a mini-reunion for us. I felt sure I would have linked up well with Muzzy, but he had a nightmare with injuries at Blues. The fans never saw what he was about. It was such a shame. Birmingham fans would have loved him, but it wasn’t to be for him. It was desperately unfair.

We also signed Mario Melchiot, who was a big character.

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