Conor Pepper (born 4 May 1994) is an Irish professional

association football Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is t ...

player, who plays as a

midfielder A midfielder is an outfield position in association football. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in that case known as defensive midfielders. As central midfielders often go across boundarie ...

or full-back for Linfield.

Career

Born in

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 ...

, Pepper played youth football with Portmarnock AFC and Cherry Orchard AFC. He played for St. Patrick's Athletic Under 19s and also made one first team appearance in the Leinster Senior Cup in a Dublin derby away to

Shamrock Rovers Shamrock Rovers Football Club ( ga, Cumann Peile Ruagairí na Seamróige) is an Irish association football club based in Tallaght, South Dublin. The club's senior team competes in the League of Ireland Premier Division and it is the most su ...

, before signing for

Scottish Premier League The Scottish Premier League (SPL) was the top level league competition for professional football clubs in Scotland. The league was founded in 1998, when it broke away from the Scottish Football League (SFL). It was abolished in 2013, when t ...

club

Inverness Caledonian Thistle Inverness Caledonian Thistle Football Club, commonly known as Caley Thistle, is a professional football club based in Inverness, Scotland. The team currently competes in the Scottish Championship, the second tier of the Scottish Professional F ...

in July 2012. He made his first competitive appearance for Inverness on 18 August 2012. During this appearance he scored a late equalising goal in a 2–2 draw against Hearts at Tynecastle. He made an assist in his second match, a 4–2 loss against Celtic. Then scored his second goal for the club in his first start away at Hibernian. Pepper has represented the

Republic of Ireland Ireland ( ga, Éire ), also known as the Republic of Ireland (), is a country in north-western Europe consisting of 26 of the 32 Counties of Ireland, counties of the island of Ireland. The capital and largest city is Dublin, on the eastern ...

at youth international levels. Despite a promising first campaign with Inverness with

Terry Butcher Terry Ian Butcher (born 28 December 1958) is an English football manager and former player. He works as an academy coach for Ipswich Town. During his playing career as a defender, Butcher captained the England national team, winning 77 cap ...

, Pepper failed to feature during his second season and was subsequently released by the club in May 2014 by manager John Hughes. However, Pepper stayed in Scottish football by signing for

Greenock Morton Greenock Morton Football Club is a Scottish professional football club, which plays in the Scottish Championship. The club was founded as Morton Football Club in 1874, making it one of the oldest senior Scottish clubs. Morton was renamed Green ...

. He agreed a new deal with Morton in May 2016. Pepper was part of the team that won the Scottish league One title in his first season at Greenock Morton. Pepper featured in every game up of his second campaign until February 2016 when suffered a knee injury and didn't feature again for the first-team. After 3 seasons with Morton, Pepper left the club in May 2017 at the end of his contract. After spending 2 years without playing first-team football, still recovering from injury, Pepper moved to

Belfast Belfast ( , ; from ga, Béal Feirste , meaning 'mouth of the sand-bank ford') is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan on the east coast. It is the 12th-largest city in the United Kingd ...

to sign for

NIFL Premiership The NIFL Premiership, known as the Danske Bank Premiership for sponsorship purposes, and colloquially as the Irish League or Irish Premiership, is a professional association football league which operates as the highest division of the North ...

side Glentoran. In his first month as a Glentoran player, Pepper won the Glentoran Supporters Player of the Month Award for August 2018 with 85% of the vote. Pepper was praised by his manager Mick McDermott, who said "I have said it before, and I will say it again, that we have the best two full-backs in the league" After two seasons with Glentoran, Pepper signed for

Big Two Big two (also known as deuces, capsa, pusoy dos, dai di and various other names) is a card game of Cantonese origin. It is similar to the games of winner, daifugō, president, crazy eights, cheat, and other shedding games. The game is very po ...

rivals Linfield.

Honours

Morton *

Scottish League One The Scottish League One, known as cinch League One for sponsorship reasons, is the third tier of the Scottish Professional Football League, the league competition for men's professional football clubs in Scotland. The Scottish League One was ...

: 2014–15 Glentoran *

Irish Cup The Irish Football Association Challenge Cup, commonly referred to as the Irish Cup (currently known as the Samuel Gelston's Whiskey Irish Cup for sponsorship purposes) is the primary football knock-out cup competition in Northern Ireland. I ...

: 2019–20 Linfield *

: 2020-21 *Irish Cup: 2020-21

Career statistics

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Pepper, Conor 1994 births Living people Republic of Ireland association footballers Expatriate footballers in Scotland St Patrick's Athletic F.C. players League of Ireland players Inverness Caledonian Thistle F.C. players Republic of Ireland youth international footballers Scottish Premier League players Association footballers from Dublin (city) Greenock Morton F.C. players Scottish Professional Football League players Republic of Ireland expatriate association footballers Cherry Orchard F.C. players Irish expatriate sportspeople in Scotland Association football defenders Association football midfielders Glentoran F.C. players NIFL Premiership players Linfield F.C. players