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.
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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 had 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 fan 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.
“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 playoff final.
