Robbie Savage is never a man to shy from the limelight - last week was the launch of his autobiography, and boy did we all know about it.
For Birmingham City supporters it was a chance to finally find out the ‘truth’ as to why he left to join Blackburn at a time when the Steve Bruce renaissance period threatened to elevate Blues to the heights previously unknown.
Was money the issue? Was it as case of one last big payday? Something is for certain, it wasn’t a case of Sav being out of favour – he was adored by myself and every Blues fan during his time at the club and in all honestly, we still haven’t replaced him. We may have had the class of Christophe Dugarry, but no one even came close to the flamboyant Welshman. He was an absolute joy to watch.
I haven’t actually read the book (£17.99 RRP?!) but I managed to grab a copy whilst shopping in WHSmith and have a flick through. The chapters focussing on his time at St Andrews were really interesting, as expected its typically arrogant – at one point describes how he was the reason the Blues stayed up in their first season in the Premier League – it is one of those statements I hate to admit, but he did. People don’t give enough credit for his overall play. Sav kept the Blues ticking, short and simple when we had it and in his time at the Blues he became deadly from the set-piece. It was when he didn’t have the ball that he was on another level to other players. He chased everything and gave up on nothing – if there is any other player that covered more ground in the first two Premier League seasons the Blues were up I would be seriously surprised – he was magnificent. When he went on his headless runs to close down a back pass, he took every single Bluenose with him and that is why he became such a hero.
There is a fine line between love and hate – just ask Savo. The papers this week jumped on his admission in the book that at in his last game for Blues he didn’t even try – you wonder why he has been so brutally honest. For fans that once loved him, the hatred many feel now still lingers. In last year’s FA Cup tie at Pride Park he was the target of abuse from all 5,000 Bluenoses – at the end of the game he ensured he was the very last man to leave the field of play just to rub it in that little bit extra.
You see Savage, no matter how good or bad, feeds on the limelight. His whole career has been based on it – ‘Jobbiegate’, his Blues departure and his arrival at bottom of the league Derby driving a Ferrari...to name but a few moments that have guaranteed Savage his newspaper inches. Even following him on Twitter these last two weeks has been an experience - @RobbieSavage8.
However, despite the book revelations, he will always be one of the game’s characters that everyone will miss once he decides he will hang up the boots. I will remember a player who gave everything in the time he wore the royal blue, a player who wore his heart on his sleeve, excuse the cliché.
Good luck to him.
