Tottenham Hotspur fans have many heroes but few are held in such high esteem as former centre back Ledley King.
Harry Kane can probably rival King for that crown, but even he isn’t a one-club man having joined Bayern Munich last summer.
King, on the other hand, was Tottenham all the way and that resonates with die-hard Spurs supporters.
After featuring for famed youth club Senrab, King joined the Tottenham ranks at 16 and progressed to become a first-team star.
A centre back who had everything to his game – pace, strength, ability on the ball, great reading of the game, aerial ability – King was the total package.
Sadly, King’s career was hampered by injuries and on only three occasions did King make more than 30 first-team appearances in a season.
King played more than 300 times for Tottenham before being forced to retire in 2012, aged just 31.
King is sadly one of those careers where you are left to wonder ‘what might have been’, but he has served as a coach and as an ambassador at the club.
Ezri Konsa wanted to be like Ledley King
King remains a hero to Tottenham fans and one Premier League defender seemingly holds him in very high esteem.
Aston Villa defender Ezri Konsa grew up supporting Tottenham and seemingly wanted to be just like King.
The Athletic note that Konsa’s favourite player growing up as a Tottenham was striker Dimitar Berbatov.
However, it was King who Konsa wanted to model his game after and ultimately follow in his footsteps as a player.
Konsa has now become a top Premier League defender and England international, following a somewhat similar path to King after all.
READ MORE: A timeline of all Tottenham Hotspur captains in the Premier League era
Konsa’s Tottenham support
The Athletic also spoke to Konsa’s former teacher Kabir Jagwani, who shed light on Konsa’s love for Tottenham.
Jagwani claims that Konsa is a ‘huge’ Tottenham fans and he would always try and talk about Spurs at school.
Jagwani even added that Konsa would tell him that he would become a Tottenham player one day, confident that he would turn out for his boyhood heroes.
“Ezri is a huge Tottenham fan and they weren’t doing great at the time,” said Jagwani. “I’m a Liverpool fan, so we would have banter when Spurs would lose. We used his love of football in class. He wasn’t the strongest in maths, so what I did was change a lot of my lessons so they were based around football. If we were dealing with figures, I would talk about stadium attendances or transfer fees. Ezri did much better that way.”
“Ezri had this thing about him that when he didn’t feel like working in class, he used to always try to just talk about football. He would try to draw me in. I remember him saying, ‘Sir, when I make it big and play for Tottenham, I’m going to get you tickets so you’re going to watch me play’,” he added.
Have Tottenham missed the boat on Konsa?
Konsa may still harbour dreams of playing for Tottenham before his career comes to an end and he has plenty of time to make it happen at 26.
Villa wouldn’t sell easily now though as they are pushing for Champions League football and have no need to sell.
The Athletic reported in 2021 that Tottenham were keen on landing Konsa but Villa have accelerated as a club since then.
The window of opportunity may have been a while ago now as Brentford signed him from Charlton for £2.5million in 2018 before selling him to Villa for £12million a year later.
Tottenham missed the boat then and with Konsa now contracted to Villa until 2028, we can’t see Konsa turning out for Spurs any time soon.
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