Craig Bellamy Biography
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.Bellamy came through the youth system at Norwich City. His first team debut for the "Canaries" came at Crystal Palace on 15 March 1997. Craig became a first team regular in the 1997-98 season, making 38 appearances with 13 goals.
Bellamy missed 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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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. The sum of all Bellamy's transfers now stands at circa £20 million.