Heskey's Youth Cup bragging rights

Image source, Getty Images

  • Author, Simon Stone
  • Role, Chief football news reporter

When your dad made more than 700 professional appearances, played for Liverpool, Leicester, Birmingham, Wigan and Aston Villa in the Premier League, won the Uefa Cup, FA Cup and League Cup four times and played 62 times for England, getting football bragging rights over him is not easy.

But Manchester City youngster Jaden Heskey achieved exactly that with his goalscoring contribution to the 4-0 FA Youth Cup final win against Leeds on Friday night.

Emile Heskey never won the FA Youth Cup. Now his son has a prestigious medal to show him.

"It is something I will remember," he said. "He played in it for Leicester but I don't think he ever won it."

City were shown a motivational video by coach Ben Wilkinson in the build-up to the final, highlighting the stars who took their first significant steps in the game by winning the Youth Cup.

"I came out of that meeting proper pumped for it," added Heskey.

"It showed the Class of '92, the old City teams in the 80s that won it and all the players and where they've gone on to. Some are in the Champions League now like [Jadon] Sancho, [Felix] Nmecha and Brahim Diaz.

"That was good motivation to have before the game just to try and get yourself in history again."