Following in their father's footsteps.....

It's a well known fact that most young boys idolise their fathers and have a burning desire to please and make them proud. 

This desire is no different for the offspring of some of the biggest names to star in the English Premier League who long to follow in their footballer father's footsteps and make a name for themselves at one of England's top Premier League clubs.

Some are led to believe that a boy whose father was a former professional footballer would benefit from certain doors opening for them over the course of their burgeoning career. 

This is certainly not the case because every professional player within the modern game at some point would have been subjected to numerous tests and trials as a youth in order to prove their worth. If a club feels that the player won't go on to make it they are released, it's as simple as that. 

Just because you have a famous father and surname it doesn't give you a right to expect to be signed up by a professional club. Brooklyn Beckham for example has just been released by Arsenal's academy which shows that this practice clearly doesn't happen in the game.

Here we have a list of fifteen current professional players who have followed their father's career path into the game:

Kasper Schmeichel - son of the "Great Dane" Peter Schmeichel currently plays as goalkeeper for Leicester City and the Danish national side. Growing up in Manchester, Kasper often played football in the streets with Alex Bruce, son of Steve Bruce. They ended up playing in the same side at Leeds United in 2010.

Alex Bruce - son of former Manchester United defender Steve Bruce is a defender with a playing style much like his father who currently plays for Hull City under his father's management. He has also previously played under his father at Birmingham City.

Niall Keown - son of former Arsenal defender Martin Keown is also a defender and has just made his first team debut for Championship side Reading. He has also recently been called up to the Republic of Ireland under 21 squad.

Dan Potts - son of former West Ham United defender Steve Potts also plays as a defender at West Ham United. He has represented England at under 18's, under 19's and under 20's.

Jack Barmby - son of former Tottenham Hotspur, Liverpool, Everton, Middlesbrough and Hull City player Nick Barmby currently plays as a midfielder for Leicester City after spending much of his youth career at Manchester United. He has represented England at under 16's, under 18's and under 19's.

Devante Cole - son of former Manchester United striker Andy Cole currently plays as a striker and is part of the Manchester City academy but is currently out on loan at League One side Milton Keynes Dons. Devante Cole has represented England at every level since under 16's.

Elliot Lee - youngest son of former Newcastle United midfielder Rob Lee, is currently on loan at League Two side Luton Town from West Ham United.

Oliver Lee - Rob Lee's eldest son currently plays as a midfielder for Plymouth Argyle on loan from Birmingham City.

Darnell Furlong - son of former Queens Park Rangers and Chelsea striker Paul Furlong plays as a defender and has recently made his debut for QPR in the Premier League.

Thomas Ince - son of former Manchester United and Liverpool midfielder Paul Ince plays as a winger under his father's former team mate Steve Bruce at Hull City although he is currently on loan at Derby County. Still only 23 years old, Ince has made 157 professional club appearances and scoring 43 goals.

Tyler Walker - son of former Nottingham Forest defender Des Walker currently plays as a striker for Nottingham Forest. Although yet to make it to the first team he has caught the eye of a host of Premier League sides after some eye-catching displays for the Forest youth side.

Angus Gunn - son of former Norwich City keeper Bryan Gunn is goalkeeper for the Manchester City Elite Development Squad and is widely tipped to become Joe Hart's successor. He has also represented England at under 20's level.

Diego Poyet - son of former Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur midfielder Gus Poyet currently plays as a midfielder for West Ham United. He has represented England at under 16 and under 17 level but is also eligible to play for Uruguay through his father.

Ellis Bellamy - son of former striker Craig Bellamy currently plays as a winger / striker for Cardiff City under 18's and the Welsh under 17's. 

Josh Windass - son of former Hull City and Middlesbrough striker Dean Windass is currently playing for League Two side Accrington Stanley as a midfielder.

Visit our site Premier League Heroes for information and statistics on all of your favourite ex Premier League players.

Forthcoming Charity Games featuring Ex Premier League Footballers

As we fast approach the end of what has been an extremely entertaining Premier League season a number of charity games and testimonials have been scheduled which will be featuring ex Premier League footballers.

One of the biggest charity games of the season has already taken place in aid of the Hillsborough 96 and featured a Liverpool team made up of former British players and a Liverpool team made up of former foreign players who represented the club.

A sellout crowd was treated to a great exhibition match which featured players who have recently retired such as Robbie Fowler and Michael Owen along with legends who retired many years ago such as Jan Molby and Ian Rush.

The majority of the players looked like they had kept themselves in pretty good shape. Fowler had put on a bit of timber and Molby was always big as a player anyway but players like Redknapp, David James and Luis Garcia all looked pretty trim.

The final score was 2-2 and was a superb day out for all involved.

Other games which are coming up in the next couple of months include former Wolverhampton Wanderers legend Jody Craddock's testimonial which will include former Wolves and Sunderland team mates such as Niall Quinn, Gavin McCann, Kevin Kilbane, Kevin Phillips, Gary Breen, Alex Rae and Michael Gray.

Tottenham Hotspur legend Ledley King has also been granted a testimonial match by the club and he will have a Spurs XI made up of players who he played with against the current first team. King's team will include former Premier League stars such as David Ginola, Darren Anderton and Teddy Sheringham.

John Beresford and Rob Lee are a number of ex Premier League footballers who will be playing in a Help for Heroes charity match in May. They are included in a team of recently retired Premier League players who will be playing against a team from the British Defence Medical Services. Other former players signed up to play are Ugo Ehiogu, Lee Carsley, Alan Stubbs, Dion Dublin and Darren Huckerby.

For information and statistics on Ex Premier League Footballers visit our website www.premierleagueheroes.co.uk

April 7th - 12 New additions to the Premier League Heroes website

This week on the Premier League Heroes website we have added three ex Premier League players who are regarded by their fans as legends of their clubs.

First up is former Stoke City, Derby County and Southampton midfielder Rory Delap who although only retiring in 2013 makes the website as he has gone onto other interests after his playing career ended.

Regular readers of the site will know that we only focus on facts and in the course of our research we encounter a lot of supposed facts that may or may not true but cannot be verified either way. One such piece of information about Delap was that Ireland were trying to recruit him as a javelin thrower for their team in the 2012 Olympics. Although Delap did throw javelin for the county in his youth he stopped in his mid teens to concentrate on football therefore highly unlikely to be of Olympic standard. Check out Rory Delap's profile page at www.premierleagueheroes.co.uk/rory-delap

We have also added ex Southampton FC defender Francis Benali to the site who has been very busy in retirement. We know that he is currently coaching at Matthew Le Tissier's football academy but apparently he used to be part owner of a Bangledeshi restaurant in Southampton called Kuti's which won a National Curry Award for their cuisine. Take a look at his profile page www.premierleagueheroes.co.uk/francis-benali

Former Fulham FC legend Louis Saha is the third ex Premier League footballer we have added to the website this week. Saha retired from the game on his 34th birthday which is quite early in the modern game. The reason cited for this was mainly down to the fact that he spent six months at three clubs in the space of a year and a half and he didn't feel as though he was involved as he wanted to be. Saha has also been busy since retiring from playing with fingers in a lot pies including co-ownership in a company called Slk Sport Ltd (which we can't find any information about), and also one called Starplay Limited. To find out more information about ex footballer Louis Saha and his Premier League statistics go to www.premierleagueheroes.co.uk/louis-saha

For information and statistics on Ex Premier League Footballers visit www.premierleagueheroes.co.uk

What kind of playing career did our current English Premier League managers have?

In today's post we take a look at the current managers of the 20 Premier League teams and their playing careers:

Arsenal - Arsene Wenger - Mostly played for French amateur teams apart from 11 appearances for RC Strasboug who were then playing in Ligue 1.

Aston Villa - Paul Lambert - Made over 500 appearances in top flight football winning numerous trophies including the Champions League whilst playing for Borussia Dortmund in 1997.

Cardiff City - Ole Gunnar Solksjaer - Manchester United legend with 6 Premier League winners medals and also a Champions League winner. Scored 237 in 382 appearances during his career.

Chelsea - Jose Mourinho - Made 94 appearances as a youngster for various Portuguese clubs before retiring at the age of 24 to concentrate on a coaching career.

Crystal Palace - Tony Pulis - Made over 300 appearances as a player mostly in the old English second and third division with Bristol Rovers and Bournemouth.

Everton - Roberto Martinez - Most of his playing career was spent in the lower leagues with Wigan and Swansea where he was an integral part of turning around the fortunes of both clubs. Martinez made 363 appearances in total.

Fulham - Rene Meulensteen - No playing career.

Hull City - Steve Bruce - Former Manchester United captain who played a pivotal role in their resurgence as one of the best teams in the country in the 90's. Bruce won the Premier League on three occasions and played in 929 first class games.

Liverpool - Brendan Rodgers - A knee condition forced Rodgers to retire at the age of 20 without playing in any first class games.

Manchester City - Manuel Pellegrini - Spent his entire playing career in Chile playing for Club Universidad de Chile making 451 appearances for them before retiring.

Manchester United - David Moyes - Made over 550 appearances in his career at a number of Scottish and English lower league clubs including Preston North End.

Newcastle United - Alan Pardew - Played over 500 games for both non league and league teams during his career most famously for Charlton Athletic and Crystal Palace.

Norwich City - Chris Hughton - Considered as one of the best full backs Tottenham Hotspur have ever produced, Hughton made 398 appearances for the club. Later on in his career he turned out for West Ham and Brentford.

Southampton - Mauricio Pochettino - Made over 500 career appearances mostly in Argentina and in Spain with Espanyol. Also represented Argentina in the 2002 World Cup where he brought down Michael Owen which resulted in a penalty which David Beckham scored.

Stoke City - Mark Hughes - Made nearly 800 career appearances and played for some of the biggest teams in the world including Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Manchester United.

Sunderland - Gus Poyet - The Uruguayan spent a large portion of his career in Spain with Real Zaragoza before moving to England and playing for Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur. Made well over 400 appearances in total.

Swansea City - Michael Laudrup - Danish footballing legend had a magnificent playing career playing for the likes of Juventus, Barcelona and Real Madrid. Often remarked that he was the best player in the world during the 90s.

Tottenham Hotspur - Tim Sherwood - Premier League winning captain for Blackburn Rovers made nearly 500 first team appearances which included spells at Norwich, Portsmouth and Spurs.

West Bromwich Albion - Pepe Mel - Spent most of his playing career in the Spanish second tier with Real Betis and Granada where he was a prolific goalscorer scoring 73 goals in 195 second division games.

West Ham United - Sam Allardyce - "Big Sam" never played in the top tier but he made over 400 appearances for many clubs in the lower leagues including Bolton Wanderers and Preston North End.

For information and statistics on Ex Premier League Footballers visit www.premierleagueheroes.co.uk

New Look for Premier League Heroes Website

After an absolute manic Christmas with our online football gifts shop we decided to take a couple of weeks out to “revisit” the design and look of our Premier League Heroes site which is an information site on former Premier League footballers and what they are up to now.

The process started back in the summer when we surveyed a number of our followers to find out what they would like to see on our website and what ex footballers they would like to see added. Taking on board these customer’s comments we have redesigned the website to give it a fresher, cleaner feel with a more contemporary look.

Each and every team that has ever graced the English Premier League now has a dedicated page on which there are Premier League players statistics, team statistics and more importantly lists their "Premier League Heroes" with links to their respective player's pages.

Every player that has a listing within the site now has his Premier League career statistics on the page along with a short biography of what he is up to nowadays. You can also click through from the player page to the Premier League team pages that he played for during his time in the Premier League.

With the influx of players retiring in the last 12 months (Beckham, Scholes, Carragher etc) we have a big job on our hands getting them all added onto the site but rest assured the big names are there along with some of the more obscure ones that you had forgotten about.

www.premierleagueheroes.co.uk

New Look for The Premier League Gift Shop in 2014

After the madness of Christmas, with an unprecedented rise in sales of our football gifts we took a couple of weeks out to “revisit” the design and look of our Premier League Gift Shop website.

The process started back in the summer when we asked customers old and new what they would like to see on our website. Taking onboard these customer’s comments we have redesigned the website to give it a fresher, cleaner feel with a more contemporary look.

We also now sell gifts from nine of the top Premier League teams: Arsenal FC, Aston Villa, Chelsea FC, Everton FC, Liverpool FC, Manchester United, Manchester City, Newcastle United and Tottenham Hotspur with each Premier League team category clearly defined so you can easily navigate between Manchester United Novelty Gifts to Tottenham Hotspur Gifts for Men for example.

We have also introduced some new categories within the site. There are now sections for football gifts for babies, ceramic football gifts and unusual football gifts too where we have various novelty items such as football team gnomes, football team phone cases and football team flags.

Although we have completely redesigned the site we have not changed our business motives and ethos which we have employed from the very start. Our prices are still as competitive as ever and we still offer FREE DELIVERY on each and everyone of our gifts. Quality is also very important to us and all of our gifts have been officially licensed by their Premier League club ensuring that our products are of an extremely high standard.

Overall we have over 2,000 football gifts within the Premier League Football Gift Shop and we are constantly adding new products on a weekly basis. Please take a minute and have a browse in the our new look football gifts shop for inspiration and gift ideas for the football fan in your life. There really is something for everyone!

Famous Football Street Sign Wall Clocks

Due to the unprecedented demand of our metal street signs depicting famous football streets and stadiums we are pleased to announce that we are now stocking wall clocks in the same style of these signs.

Made of canvas and measuring approximately 37cm x 18.5cm, these street sign clocks look fantastic in any room whether it be a child's bedroom, office or even kitchen. These clocks require 1 x AA battery which is not included.

We currently have these street sign canvas wall clocks in three designs, Chelsea FC, Liverpool FC and Manchester United and they are priced at £14.99 each which includes delivery too. 

Man United Street Sign Clock 

Liverpool FC Street Sign Clock

For more fantastic gift ideas visit our online football shop www.premierleaguegiftshop.co.uk