Craig Bellamy

Craig Douglas Bellamy (born 13 July 1979) is a Welsh football coach and former professional footballer who played as a forward. He is the current head coach of Wales.

Born in Cardiff, Bellamy made his professional debut with Norwich City in 1996. He signed for Premier League side Coventry City in 2000, breaking the club's record transfer fee, but suffered relegation in his only season. He joined Newcastle United the following year where he helped the club achieve two top-four finishes during a four year spell. Bellamy fell out with manager Graeme Souness in 2005 and spent the latter part of the 2004–05 season on loan at Celtic, where he won the Scottish Cup, where he was named the club's player of the year, and Liverpool, helping the club reach the 2007 UEFA Champions League final. In 2007 he signed for West Ham United but injury disrupted his time there and in 2009 he joined Manchester City. For the 2010–11 season, Bellamy dropped a division to the Championship to represent his boyhood club Cardiff City on a season-long loan. Bellamy returned to Liverpool the following season, winning the 2011–12 League Cup and reaching the FA Cup final, before rejoining Cardiff City permanently in 2012. He later led them to the Premier League and played one more season with the club, setting a new record by scoring for his seventh different club in the division, before retiring from playing in 2014.

Having represented Wales at several youth levels, in 1998 at the age of 18, Bellamy made his senior debut for Wales against Jamaica. Over the next fifteen years, Bellamy gained 78 caps for his country and scored 19 goals. He was the captain of the side from 2007 to 2011, when he stepped down from the role due to recurring injuries. Bellamy retired from international football following the 2014 FIFA World Cup qualification campaign. He was also a member of the Great Britain Olympic team at the 2012 Olympics in London, appearing five times and scoring once.

Bellamy has been involved in numerous high-profile incidents during his career with teammates, managers and members of the public and was described by Bobby Robson as "a great player wrapped round an unusual and volatile character". Outside football, he has been a patron of several charities and started his own organisation, The Craig Bellamy Foundation, in Sierra Leone to provide schooling and football coaching to disadvantaged children.

Early life

Craig Douglas Bellamy was born on 13 July 1979 at the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff, the second of three boys born to Douglas and Angela Bellamy. At the time, the family lived on Swinton Street near the Splott district of the city, a traditionally working-class environment. Bellamy's mother worked as a cleaner and his father worked at the nearby Allied Steel and Wire site that overlooked the family home, where he remained until the plant's closure in 2002. With both his parents working full-time, Bellamy spent most of his school holidays at his paternal grandmother's home in Adamsdown. He suffers from asthma; as a child he made frequent visits to hospital to manage the condition. At the age of five, Bellamy and his family moved to the eastern suburb Trowbridge, which is part of a council estate built in the 1960s.

Bellamy's father was a keen football fan who supported Cardiff City and Bellamy's first experience of professional football was watching a Football League Fourth Division match between Cardiff and Newport County at Cardiff's home ground Ninian Park during the 1987–88 season, which Cardiff won 4–0. His father played amateur football for local Cardiff-based sides; Bellamy described him as a "sluggish right-back". Bellamy's interest in the sport grew rapidly; he regularly attended Cardiff City matches at Ninian Park and played in a park near his home with his older brother Paul and his friends. Bellamy credits playing against older children as making him "into a better player very quickly".

He first attended Baden Powell Primary School before switching to Trowbridge Juniors where he joined the school football team at the age of seven. Despite being younger than most of the other players, he was selected to play and featured in his first match against Gladstone Primary School. Local team Pentwyn Dynamo took an interest in Bellamy but were put off by his small size; his father offered to form a team if Bellamy could find enough players. Soon after, the under-10s side of local team Caer Castell FC was formed, and Bellamy scored all four goals in the club's first fixture. He was later picked to represent both Cardiff Schools and a Cardiff and District side in national competition. He went on to attend Rumney High School, but left the school with no GCSEs.

At the age of 12, Bellamy became friends with a group of mostly older boys and began to regularly drink alcohol and skipped school for up to two weeks at a time. He saw several of his friends using cannabis and sniffing glue but denies ever using the substances himself. He later admitted to acting as a lookout while his friends broke into vehicles to steal car stereos to sell for drug money. He described himself as "a kid who knew he was going to be a footballer and thought he knew it all". By age 14, Bellamy was barely attending school and was smoking cigarettes and drinking alcohol every day. In 1993, his brother introduced him to his future wife, Claire; Bellamy credits the relationship as a key factor in moving him away from his early troubles.

Club career

Bristol Rovers and Norwich City

Bellamy attended youth sessions organised by Cardiff City in Ely for a year after being encouraged by his father. The club, however, took little interest in him as a youngster and, at nine-years-old, he joined Bristol Rovers after being spotted by former professional Stan Montgomery, who was working for Rovers. Although an hour's drive from his family home, Bellamy was swayed by the better coaching and his own playing kit. He spent two years with Bristol Rovers before being spotted by a scout working for Norwich City. The club invited Bellamy to a trial match in Somerset where he impressed and was asked to travel with the side to compete in the Dana Cup, an international youth football tournament held in Hjørring, Denmark. His performances led to a permanent place with the Canary Rangers, Norwich's youth development side. Prior to signing with the club, several other teams took an interest in Bellamy; Leeds United offered his parents £10,000 if he signed for them. Norwich responded by guaranteeing him a two-year YTS contract when he was old enough to sign. Bellamy travelled to Norwich by train on Saturday afternoons, then played a youth match on Sunday morning before returning to Cardiff.

At the age of 15, Bellamy moved away from Cardiff to start his youth apprenticeship with Norwich, being placed with a local family along with another apprentice. His first year away from home proved troublesome and he describes it as "the hardest year of my life", regularly crying himself to sleep due to homesickness. Each apprentice was assigned to a senior player for whom they performed basic tasks such as cleaning boots or making tea. Bellamy was paired with John Polston but found the experienced defender difficult to work with and believed Polston tried to "humiliate" him.

Bellamy's homesickness was lessened after he became friends with another apprentice from Cardiff, Tom Ramasut, but problems with his discipline became commonplace. On one occasion, Bellamy received a final warning from staff after he broke the arm of a trialist goalkeeper during a fight on the training ground; Bellamy later wrote that he believed Norwich showed him leniency when disciplining him in fear of losing a player regarded as having a bright future. Bellamy reached a turning point in his career when his girlfriend Claire became pregnant while he was a youth player. He has credited this as a catalyst for his career that saw him become more determined to become a professional footballer, stating, "I have had the career I have had because of that moment when Claire phoned me up to tell me she was pregnant". At the end of the first year of his YTS deal, Bellamy was the only player promoted to the club's reserve side by coach Mike Phelan.

Bellamy signed his first professional contract with Norwich when he turned 16, earning £250 a week, with the option to renegotiate after ten first-team appearances. He made his professional debut for Norwich on 15 March 1997 under manager Mike Walker at the age of 17, as an injury-time substitute in a 2–0 defeat to Crystal Palace in the First Division, the second tier of the English football league system. Remarking on the rushed nature of his appearance, he said, "It all felt very last minute. I was wearing a kit about three sizes too big for me, I touched the ball twice, we lost 2–0 and it was over." Two further substitute appearances in fixtures against Manchester City and Oldham Athletic followed before the end of the season.

Bellamy made his first career start for Norwich in the opening month of the following season in the first round of the League Cup against Barnet on 12 August 1997, and started in the league for the first time on 20 September against Manchester City. During the early stages of the campaign, Bellamy played his tenth match for the first team, leading to new contract negotiations. Despite an attempt by newly-promoted Premier League side Crystal Palace to sign him for £2 million, he chose to extend his deal with Norwich. On 1 November, Bellamy scored his first senior goal, the opener in a 2–2 home draw with Bury. He received his first career red card on 7 February 1998 in the 23rd minute against Manchester City, but finished his first full season with 13 goals from 38 appearances, while playing mostly as a central midfielder.

As a young player, Bellamy was unafraid to voice his opinion to more senior members of the squad. His approach annoyed some teammates who sought retribution during training sessions; Bellamy later commented, "one or two of them would try to clean me out with flying tackles. They wanted to bring me down a peg or two." One training session left him "nearly in tears" after Kevin Scott repeatedly singled him out. Bellamy won support from his midfield partner, the experienced Peter Grant, who struck up a friendship with Bellamy. Bruce Rioch was appointed Norwich manager in 1998 and instantly moved Bellamy from central midfield to attack. The decision reaped rewards immediately; Bellamy scored seven goals in his first eight league appearances of the campaign, including his first career hat-trick on 22 August 1998 in a 4–2 home win over Queens Park Rangers. By November, he was one of the leading goalscorers in the First Division and was rewarded with a new five-year contract.

In December 1998, Bellamy suffered an injury to his left knee following a high challenge by Wolverhampton Wanderers defender Kevin Muscat that ruled him out for two months and left him with a puncture wound in his kneecap caused by one of Muscat's studs. The tackle caused so much consternation that Rioch had to be physically restrained by his coaching staff while Bellamy's Norwich teammate Iwan Roberts later admitted taking revenge on Muscat by stamping on his back when the pair met in a match two years later. Bellamy continued to experience soreness in the knee after his return for the remainder of the season but ended the campaign with a career high 19 goals in all competitions.

In a pre-season friendly against Southend United prior to the following season, Bellamy ruptured his cruciate ligaments in an innocuous challenge with an opposition defender and was ruled out for between six and eight months. He made his return to the first team against Port Vale on 22 April 2000 and finished the season by scoring goals in consecutive matches against Barnsley and Sheffield United. Interest in Bellamy grew during the summer; Norwich rejected an offer of £3.5 million by Wimbledon while Newcastle United showed interest but held back from making a bid because they were waiting to sell Duncan Ferguson to finance the transfer.

Coventry City

As Newcastle stalled over a bid, Coventry City offered a club-record £6 million to sign Bellamy, which Norwich accepted. Bellamy was reluctant to join the club, preferring a move to Newcastle; he met with Coventry manager Gordon Strachan to discuss the transfer. Bellamy did not employ an agent at the time so asked his financial advisor to attend the meeting. His advisor had recently met former footballer John Fashanu and telephoned him for advice, leading to Fashanu arriving at the meeting unannounced. The pressure of the situation led Bellamy to agree to the move but he regretted his decision, commenting, "They were persuasive. I felt undermined by the mess with Fashanu. I wanted to save face with Strachan. I felt stressed. My chest was tight because I'm asthmatic. I was struggling to breathe properly because I was so tense. I was in a state. So I did what everybody had told me not to do. I told Strachan I'd sign."

Bellamy became Coventry's record signing, joining on 16 August 2000 as a replacement for Robbie Keane. He made his Premier League debut on the opening day of the 2000–01 season in a 3–1 defeat to Middlesbrough and converted a penalty in the following game, a 2–1 victory over Southampton. He endured a poor start to his career with Coventry, however, scoring only three league goals—two of which were penalties—by the start of December as the club found itself in the relegation zone. On 10 December 2000, he scored the winning goal in a 1–0 victory over Leicester City to gain his side three crucial points and Bellamy's form improved further after the arrival of his Wales strike-partner John Hartson. Coventry were relegated at the end of the 2000–01 season after the team finished 19th in the Premier League. Bellamy ended his only season at Coventry with eight goals from 39 appearances. His tally of six in the league resulted in him finishing as the club's joint-highest goalscorer in the league, tied with Hartson and Mustapha Hadji. After leaving the club, Bellamy said, "I never once enjoyed it at Coventry. I felt quite demoralised. I had enjoyed myself so much at Norwich – but I found I had taken a backward step."

Newcastle United

Bobby Robson era

Coventry looked to reduce their wage bill following relegation and accepted an offer of £6.5 million from Newcastle United for Bellamy. Newcastle manager Bobby Robson later wrote that Bellamy was "a great player wrapped round an unusual and volatile character". Bellamy's Newcastle debut came in the UEFA Intertoto Cup, with the club drawn against Belgian side Lokeren. In the first leg, Newcastle secured a 4–0 victory, in which Bellamy assisted Wayne Quinn and Shola Ameobi before scoring his first goal for the club in the second leg. Bellamy scored his first Premier League goal for Newcastle in a 1–1 draw against local rivals Sunderland at St James' Park on 28 August 2001. Two weeks later, he scored a hat-trick in a 4–1 victory over Brentford in the League Cup, scoring all three goals within 12 minutes. Newcastle enjoyed a positive start to the season and moved into first place on 18 December 2001 after a 3–1 win over Arsenal. Bellamy was shown a straight red card in the match after being adjudged to have swung an arm at Ashley Cole, although the decision was overturned on appeal. Under Robson, Bellamy formed a productive strike partnership with Alan Shearer; the pair scored 41 goals between them during his first year. Bellamy remarked that his pace and creativity complemented Shearer's game.

Bellamy was one of three players sent home from a winter training camp in La Manga after missing a team meal in honour of former chairman John Hall. The group were said to be unaware of the significance of the dinner and had stayed on at a local restaurant. Later in the season, he was given a police caution for common assault after being accused of throwing a student out of teammate Kieron Dyer's car before kicking her. Bellamy refuted the accusations and stated the incident was sparked by the student slamming the car door on his leg after she refused to get out. Newcastle's title challenge gradually faded and Bellamy missed most of the season's final months after tearing a tendon during a match against Sunderland. He featured once in the last three months of the campaign as Newcastle finished fourth. In his first season, Bellamy scored 14 goals for the side and was awarded the PFA Young Player of the Year award.

Bellamy underwent knee surgery during the summer break and was originally expected to be fit in time for the new season. His rehabilitation, however, was slow and he missed Newcastle's first four fixtures of the season. After returning from injury, Bellamy made his UEFA Champions League debut against Ukrainian side Dynamo Kyiv and was later given a retrospective three-match ban for headbutting Tiberiu Ghioane in the latter stages of the match. On 13 November 2002, he scored two goals, including a 90th-minute winner, in a 3–2 win over Feyenoord, which took Newcastle into the second group stage of the tournament. Complications from his knee surgery caused problems throughout the season; inflammation occurred consistently after matches, leaving him struggling for fitness the following week.

In the second round of the Champions League, during a 4–1 home defeat to Internazionale, Bellamy received the fastest red card in the competition's history when he was sent off for swinging an arm at opposition defender Marco Materazzi five minutes into the game. Bellamy reacted to being pinched, which resulted in him receiving a three-match ban. Bellamy began suffering from tendinitis in his knee and, following the death of his grandmother, experienced personal issues that culminated in an argument outside a Cardiff nightclub with a stranger. He was charged with the use of racially aggravated language over the incident. The charges were later dropped but Bellamy was convicted of using foul and abusive language and fined £750. He finished the 2002–03 season with nine goals in 37 appearances as Newcastle finished in third position.

During mid-2003, Bellamy was advised that he required surgery on his knee but decided to postpone the operation to play in two Euro 2004 qualifying matches for Wales at the start of the 2003–04 season. He missed several matches for Newcastle to ensure he was fit for Wales's matches. This decision angered Newcastle chairman Freddy Shepherd, who tried to block Bellamy from appearing for Wales until he returned to action for his club side. Shepherd threatened to sue the Football Association of Wales (FAW) if Bellamy featured for Wales but this was later dismissed. Bellamy underwent the surgery but returned to Newcastle to be informed by Shepherd the club were willing to sell Bellamy if he failed to return to form. He missed more than three months of the campaign in recovery before returning to first-team action on 31 January 2004 in a 1–1 draw with Birmingham City. Bellamy enjoyed a prolific scoring run following his return, scoring seven goals in two months before his season was ended due to a pulled hamstring as Newcastle finished fifth. In March 2004, media reports stated Bellamy threw a chair at first-team coach John Carver after a public argument between the pair. The altercation occurred when the squad was travelling to play a UEFA Cup fixture with Real Mallorca and Bellamy refused to travel. Robson persuaded Bellamy to attend the match after a lengthy discussion; Bellamy praised Robson's handling of the incident and blamed the argument with Carver on pranks that had got out of hand.

Graeme Souness era

The arrival of Patrick Kluivert from Barcelona provided increased competition for Bellamy going into the 2004–05 season and the sale of his Wales international teammate Gary Speed further weakened his position at the club. After a poor start to the season, Robson was sacked after four league matches. His replacement was Graeme Souness, a coach with a reputation as a disciplinarian and he quickly clashed with Bellamy. The pair had a public argument when Bellamy was pictured swearing at Souness after being substituted during a match and later had a physical altercation during a training session. The two stated the rift had been healed after Bellamy scored a last-minute-winning goal in a 4–3 victory over Manchester City in late October. His last goal for the club came in a UEFA Cup group stage match against Sporting CP in December, a 1–1 draw at St. James' Park; it was his 10th goal for Newcastle that season.

On 23 January 2005 Bellamy was omitted from the team for a Premier League match with Arsenal at Highbury, which Newcastle lost 1–0. Before the match, Souness stated Bellamy was left out because of a hamstring problem but in a post-match interview said it was because Bellamy was unwilling to play as a right-sided midfielder. Minutes later, Bellamy gave an interview saying he was prepared to play in any position for his club. With his Newcastle career in doubt, Bellamy later revealed he had feigned injury to leave a training session shortly before the Arsenal match. Days later, Bellamy argued with Shearer and in an interview accused Souness of lying about him and his commitment to the club. Souness responded by stating that Bellamy would never play for Newcastle again while he was manager and the club fined Bellamy two weeks' wages (about £80,000, around £120,000 in 2020). Bellamy was told to apologise to Souness but refused to do so and was subsequently excluded from first-team training. Bellamy ended his Newcastle career with a total of 42 goals from 128 appearances.

Celtic loan

On 31 January 2005, Bellamy joined Scottish Premier League side Celtic on loan for the remainder of the season. Celtic had the option of making the transfer permanent at the end of the loan. Following his departure, Souness stated it was "him or me" at Newcastle and that allowing Bellamy to remain would have ended his managerial career. He also criticised Bellamy's goalscoring record, commenting; "he's averaged 9.3 goals per season. Half of those were not in the top flight. We need two strikers near 20 goals." Bellamy rejected a £6 million transfer to Birmingham City to move to Celtic. He made his debut for the club in a 2–0 defeat against Celtic's Old Firm rivals Rangers on 20 February. The following week, he scored his first goal in a 5–0 win against Scottish First Division side Clyde in the Scottish Cup