Despite the sheer volume of widely admired stars to have made their mark on the Beautiful Game as we know it today, defining football’s out-in-out ‘cult heroes’ remains a task somewhat easier said than done in the modern era.
The cult hero can seemingly stand out among his contemporaries on the basis of several different factors. Whilst many develop their promising reputation through a unique brand of flair and ability with the ball at their feet, others simply gain such a status for proving distinctly loyal to their club’s cause and hard working out on the pitch to boot.
Throughout the years, the cult hero has often been produced out of unlikely circumstances and against the status-quo. From the admittedly useless players that nonetheless manage to win over their fans through sheer determination alone, to the unpredictable mavericks whose very own inconsistency issues ultimately serve to heighten their overall mystique in the end – every club has made room for a few cult heroes along the way.
So then, in light of such discussion surrounding several of football’s more surprising poster-boys, here are 50 of the best cult heroes the Premier League has ever paid witness to…