Craig Bellamy

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This article is about the Welsh footballer. For the rugby coach and former rugby player, see Craig Bellamy (rugby league footballer).

Personal information
Craig Bellamy
Full name	Craig Douglas Bellamy
Date of birth	13 July 1979
Place of birth	Cardiff, Wales
Height	5 ft 9 in (1.75 m)
Nickname	Bellers
Position	Centre Forward
Club information
Current club	Liverpool
Number	17
Professional clubs*
Years	Club	Apps (goals)
1996–2000 2000–2001 2001–2005 2005 2005–2006 2006–present	Norwich City Coventry City Newcastle United → Celtic (loan) Blackburn Rovers Liverpool	84 (32) 34 (6) 93 (28) 12 (7) 27 (13) 7 (1)
National team**
1998–present	Wales	36 (10)
* Professional club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only and correct as of 26 August 2006. ** National team caps and goals correct as of 13 August 2006.

Craig Douglas Bellamy (born July 13, 1979 in Canton, Cardiff) is a Welsh international football player. He regarded as a quick, hard-working striker, and currently plays for Liverpool in the English Premiership. He has earned the reputation as being a disruptive player due to both on and off the field incidents.

1 Early career
2 Coventry City
3 Newcastle United
4 Celtic & Blackburn Rovers
5 Liverpool
6 International Career
7 Personal life
8 Honours
- 8.1 Celtic
- 8.2 Liverpool
9 Personal Awards
10 References
11 External links

[edit] Early career

Bellamy came through the youth system at Rhyl Football Club. His first team debut for the "Lillywhites" came at Bangor City on 15 March 1997. Craig became a first team regular in the 1997-98 season, making 38 appearances with 13 goals.

A Year later, he was sold to Norwich City for an undisclosed fee, although he missed the first two months of the 1998-99 season through injury after a clash with Wolves defender Kevin Muscat. He still managed to have a successful season amassing 17 goals in 38 appearances.

1999-00 again saw Bellamy miss a substantial amount of the season after sustaining a knee injury during a pre-season game against Southend. He only returned to action in April 2000. The summer of 2000 saw much transfer speculation surrounding Bellamy with Newcastle United, Tottenham, Celtic and Wimbledon all reportedly interested. Bellamy eventually completed a move to Coventry City for a sum of £6.5 million (money they had gained through selling Robbie Keane to Inter Milan).

[edit] Coventry City

Bellamy had an unsuccessful start to his career with the "Sky Blues", scoring only three goals by December. This fueled rumours of a return to Norwich, but it never materialised. Coventry themselves were struggling in the Premier League and Bellamy made it clear that he would not stay with the club if they were relegated to the First Division. By the end of the season Coventry were indeed relegated and in June 2001 they sold Bellamy to Newcastle for £6 million. The Coventry City fans and Craig Bellamy have since held a long running feud ever since he publicly damned the fans for not supporting him. The fans were more supportive of the brickwork out the back of the training ground, as they showed more effort to hold together.

[edit] Newcastle United

Bellamy's Newcastle career got off to a flying start as he scored on his debut in their 4-0 win over Belgian side Lokeren. Under manager Bobby Robson he formed a productive striking partnership with Alan Shearer, Bellamy's pace complementing the former England captain's guile. At the end of his first season, Bellamy was awarded the PFA Young Player of the Year award, ahead of players such as Steven Gerrard.

During his second season at Newcastle came probably his most important moment for the club as he scored two goals (including the winner) in the 3-2 win over Feyenoord which took Newcastle through to the second group stage of the UEFA Champions League. Unfortunately, in the next match (a 4-1 defeat to Inter Milan) he was sent off for kicking out at an Inter defender, which resulted in a three match ban. His aggression has at times been his achilles heel and in March 2003 he was alleged to have racially attacked someone at a nightclub in Cardiff.

After Bobby Robson's departure in August 2004, Bellamy had a very public falling-out with his replacement as Newcastle manager, Graeme Souness. On 23 January 2005, Bellamy was omitted from the team for a Premiership match with Arsenal. Before the match, Souness said that Bellamy had a hamstring problem, but contradicted himself in a post-match interview, claiming that Bellamy was benched for being unprepared to play as a right-side midfielder.

Minutes later, Bellamy gave an interview of his own saying that he was prepared to play in any position. He admitted that he had threatened to fake injury ahead of the Arsenal match, and in a later interview accused Souness of lying about him. Two days after the match, the club fined Bellamy two weeks' wages (about £80,000). On January 31, 2005 (transfer deadline day) Bellamy was sent on loan to Celtic F.C. of the Scottish Premier League for the remainder of the season. He rejected a move to Birmingham City.

Bellamy's feud with Newcastle United resurfaced in September 2006 following Liverpool's victory over the Magpies. Assistant Manager Terry McDermott branded Bellamy a "little upstart" after he was said to have interrupted a conversation McDermott was having with referee Mark Halsey after the match had finished.^[1]

[edit] Celtic & Blackburn Rovers

He scored nine goals for Celtic in the remainder of the season. He was part of the squad that went onto win the Scottish Cup, his only career trophy so far. The club were keen to sign him permanently, but on 7 July 2005 it was announced that he was to return to the Premiership with Blackburn Rovers for a transfer fee rumoured to be between £2.5 million and £5 million. He signed a four year contract, and he was reunited with former Wales manager Mark Hughes, scoring seventeen goals for Blackburn in a successful season which sparked renewed interest in him from a handful of top clubs.

Craig Bellamy made himself unwelcome even further at St James' Park by sending nasty text messages to club captain and legend Alan Shearer, after Newcastle's FA Cup semi-final defeat by Manchester United. At the time, Shearer was with the Newcastle squad in Ireland for Jackie McNamara's testimonial golf day, and his agent has insisted his mobile had been lost at the time. Kenneth Shepherd, son of Newcastle chairman Freddy, also received gloating text messages. Shearer is alleged to have threatened to "knock his block off" if Craig Bellamy returned to Newcastle United ^[2]

[edit] Liverpool

On 20 June 2006 he was the subject of a transfer bid from FA Cup winners Liverpool, rumoured to be in the region of £6.5 million. The offer triggered a clause in Bellamy's contract involving bids from clubs playing Champions League football, and Blackburn were obliged to allow him permission to talk to the club.

Liverpool manager Rafael Benitez subsequently stated that Bellamy "has the ability, the pace and the talent we've been looking for", and that he expected talks to go well, particularly as Bellamy is known to have supported Liverpool in his youth. ^[3] He signed for the club on 23 June 2006 and officially became a Liverpool player on July 1, 2006.^[4] The sum of all Bellamy's transfers now stands at circa £20 million.

Bellamy has yet to make a big impression at Liverpool, having scored only three goals in eleven games for the club, although he played four of these games as a late substitute. He scored once in the Community Shield playing against Chelsea, once in the Champions League against Maccabi Haifa, and once in the Premiership against Blackburn. Manager Rafa Benitez appears to consider Peter Crouch and their other summer signing Dirk Kuyt as the main two strikers, with Bellamy being a substitute.

[edit] International Career

Bellamy made his international debut for Wales during the 1997-98 season, playing in a friendly game against Jamaica.

In October 2006, Bellamy was awarded the captain's armband by Welsh manager John Toshack when Ryan Giggs was unavailabe through injury for the Euro 2008 qualifier against Slovakia. His captaincy got off to the worst possible start with a 5-1 thrashing. However in his second game as captain against Cyprus, Wales won 3-1.

[edit] Personal life

Craig’s father, Douglas, was the manager of the Allied steel and wire plant in Cardiff before being made redundant a few years ago when the firm went bankrupt. Craig bought his dad an Audi sports car as a present. Craig’s mother Angela was a care worker. Craig’s grandfather is ethnic Maltese. Craig has two brothers, one older one Paul (who works in a SWALEC call centre) and one younger brother named Matthew (who is an apprentice welder). He is currently working on constructing a back brace for Craig to help with his over-arching spine.

Craig attended Baden Powell school in the Splott area of Cardiff where he lived as a toddler. The Bellamy family then moved to the Trowbridge, Cardiff council estate were Craig attended Trowbridge junior school and Rhymney High school. It was brother Paul who first informed the Dad that Craig has a real talent for football. Since then his supportive dad Doug drove Craig to football events all over the country.

Bellamy has a long term childhood sweetheart Claire Jansen, and the couple have two young boys, Ellis (b. 1997) and Cameron (b. 2001). On Saturday 3 June 2006 the couple married at their local St Bride's Church in St Brides-super-Ely, Vale of Glamorgan near Cardiff, followed by a lavish reception at their nearby Grade2 listed country home.^[5] Bellamy hired a pink Rolls Royce for his bride, and drove himself to the ceremony in his Black Bentley.^[6]

Their honeymoon was interupted as Bellamy was due back in Cardiff to answer to Magistrates over his bail extension, following an alleged assault on a 19-year-old girl in a Cardiff nightclub in March 2006, unexpected of a professional (male) footballer.^[7] He was later charged with assault.^[8]