MICAH RICHARDS has revealed the brutal message he received from a fan during his early days in football.
Richards, 35, recalled the story while appearing on The Rest Is Football Podcast with Gary Lineker and Alan Shearer.
The trio were fielding questions from fans, with one of them asking whether they had a soft spot for any lower league teams.
Former Manchester City and England defender Richards went first, revealing he had a soft spot for boyhood club Oldham, where he spent much of his youth career.
In doing so, he also lifted the lid on a piece of fan mail he received from an Oldham and Man City supporter after he had moved to the Premier League outfit.
He said: “I go to Man City [from Oldham] at 14. Fast forward to 2005, 06, 07 when I’m 17, 18, 19, and we all get fan mail. It’s a thing that comes to the training ground.
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“It had Man City/Oldham fan on it so they must like both clubs.
“So get this fan mail, open it up and it starts wonderfully: ‘Hi Micah, so good to see you doing so well coming through the ranks at Oldham and now at City. But you do know Oldham have a 20 per cent sell-on clause in the contract’.
“So I’m reading down, reading down, at the end of the letter he puts: ‘PS I think it’s best for all parties for you to leave now so we can get some money in the kitty for Oldham.
“‘You’ve done what you needed to do and I think it’s time you should leave’.
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“And I’m like ‘So have I read this right, he wants me to leave’ because Chelsea apparently at the time was in for me for £20million and Man Utd for £20m and for Oldham it would have been £4m.
“So he made out like he wanted me to prosper but all he was thinking about was this £4m sell-on clause.”
Shearer, 53, then joked: “PS from the Oldham chairman,” which triggered laughter from all three of them.
The former Newcastle and Blackburn ace revealed he had a soft spot for Gateshead due to training there as a child.
Meanwhile, Lineker quipped the lower league team he supports was Leicester – who may cause an FA Cup scheduling nightmare if they end up in the Cup final and Championship play-off final.
Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
