[Archived] One Piece Of Good News

[Billy Castell]

Emile Heskey retires from international football.

[Kelbo]

Emile Heskey retires from international football.

Watching him play in the World Cup, I thought he already had

[EnglishChris]

Thank god for that lol time to break out the champagne and celebrate

[Mr. E]

Capello is bawling his eyes out right now.

He's the only one.

[The Rover of Finland]

Does it mean Sheringham´s comeback?

[braddock]

nobody cares about england

[roversfan99]

Its not good news if he wants to concentrate on his career as Blackburns new striker...

[Tom]

Bad news most will need a new scapegoat, shame pedersen isn't english

[Tim Southampton Rover]

Heskey's best moment for England was scoring in our 5-1 win in Germany. He was brilliant that game and to be fair to him he's not always performed badly for England and he's always worked his socks off for England. I guess if other England players put as much heart and effort in their performances as Heskey did then we probably would have seen a lot more better performances by England and Heskey wouldn't have been made a scapegoat as often as he was.

Obviously he wasn't what we needed or wanted as a striker for England, especially looking at the long list of great strikers to play for England, but he wasn't the one picking the team and he could only do his best for the team. Saying that, please don't ever come back out of retirement

[broadsword]

Let's all have a disco!

[Majiball]

£20.00 quid says Capello asks him to come out of retirement for the euro championships. :lol:

[braddock]

Emile Heskey: 62 caps,7 goals.

Columbian goalkeeper Rene Higuita: 68 caps 8 goals

[Billy Castell]

Tom Varndell, Ugo Monye, Mike Tindall, Mathew Tait and countless other English rugby players could have switched to football, and offered as much as Heskey, if not more. All the names above have speed, stamina and strength, and given a season or two playing football, could have played Heskey's 'busy, strong, non-scoring striker' role to greater effect.

[Al]

Where are the goals going to come from now?

[waggy]

i thought he retired in 2002

[braddock]

Yeah, I'm retiring from international football too.

[thenodrog]

Tom Varndell, Ugo Monye, Mike Tindall, Mathew Tait and countless other English rugby players could have switched to football, and offered as much as Heskey, if not more. All the names above have speed, stamina and strength, and given a season or two playing football, could have played Heskey's 'busy, strong, non-scoring striker' role to greater effect.

Seeing what Heskey earns I'm sure they would have if they could.

Fact is if they ever appeared on the pitch in the top leagues they would be rubbish, even compared to Heskey..... Equally I bet he'd look crap on a rugby pitch too.

[OscarRaven]

Seeing what Heskey earns I'm sure they would have if they could.

Fact is if they ever appeared on the pitch in the top leagues they would be rubbish, even compared to Heskey..... Equally I bet he'd look crap on a rugby pitch too.

A shame one or two others haven't followed him. He had 2 good games to my recollection but otherwise the fact he got 60 more caps tells me everything that is wrong with the english 'style'.

[Billy Castell]

Fact is if they ever appeared on the pitch in the top leagues they would be rubbish, even compared to Heskey..... Equally I bet he'd look crap on a rugby pitch too.

Give them a season or two in the 1st division, then a season in the Premier League, and then they'd be as good as Emile. It sounds insane, but if an athlete can win a silver in rowing in the 2004 Olympics, and then a gold in track cycling in 2008, then it might have worked.

[Neil Weaver]

Give them a season or two in the 1st division, then a season in the Premier League, and then they'd be as good as Emile. It sounds insane, but if an athlete can win a silver in rowing in the 2004 Olympics, and then a gold in track cycling in 2008, then it might have worked.

In his younger days, didn't Darren Campbell have a go at football? Don't remember if he made it to pro level but I think he gave it up to get back into sprinting. You need a bit of footie ability as well as some other talent (running fast or whatever) to make it as a decent pro footballer, let alone representing your country.

Unless that country happens to be Andorra I suppose.

[sparky12]

Whos Attending Heskeys Retirement Party??

[thenodrog]

Give them a season or two in the 1st division, then a season in the Premier League, and then they'd be as good as Emile.

Doesn't work like that or rugby would cease to exist.

A fact that I recall is that approx 1 in 7000 kids becomes a professional footballer. God only knows what the ratio is that make it to Prem or International level. There are plenty of wannabees that are part good an play to a decent standard but there are not many with the abilities required to get to the top rung and actually make a living at it.

Just as an aside I once rem playing a 5 a side football match against a rugby team from St Martins Lancaster when I was at the Tech. The weather was so wet that the rugby match was called off and a sports event was held in the college sports hall involving challenges between the teams at Volleyball, basketball, weights, football etc. I didn't play rugby but had been drafted in by a few rugby playing drinking buddies cos the Blackburn team was short of numbers. I turned out against the Lancaster team with 4 random rugby lads from Blackburn to face what appeared 5 impressive physical specimens from Lancaster. The match kicked off and they were crap! Useless! In fact I've seen milk turn quicker and they couldn't trap a wet sandbag between them! We won 5-0 with yours truly scoring all 5. Thats how good I think rugby players are at proper football.

Simple fact is that rugby was invented by some bloke called Webb who obviously had 2 left feet, was big and gormless and who couldn't cut it at football so he picked the ball up during a football game and ran off with it!

[Billy Castell]

You described Heskey quite well there Gordon. Obviously a bit of natural ability in ball control is needed, but if the mentioned players of that, then they could be as good as Emile in the getting around and winning headers business. I'd say Dan Carter would be the best at switching codes, but then he won't be able to play for England.

Heskey can't trap a ball, shoot or show any footballing ability, so a rugby player couldn't do any worse.