Roy Alan Chipolina (born 20 January 1983) is a

Gibraltar Gibraltar ( , ) is a British Overseas Territories, British Overseas Territory and British overseas cities, city located at the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula, on the Bay of Gibraltar, near the exit of the Mediterranean Sea into the A ...

ian former

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby lea ...

who played as a defender for Lincoln Red Imps and the Gibraltar national team, for which he served as

captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader or highest rank officer of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police depa ...

Club career

Chipolina has played for Rock Wolves between 2003 and 2006, and then

Gibraltar Premier Division The Gibraltar Premier Division was a football league established by the Gibraltar Football Association (GFA) in 1905, and the top tier of football in Gibraltar. It originally contained eight member clubs, but it has grown over the years. In 1 ...

side Lincoln Red Imps since 2006. He became the first Gibraltarian, and oldest player, to score in the fledgling

UEFA Europa Conference League The UEFA Conference League (UECL), usually known simply as the Conference League, is an annual association football, football competition organised since 2021 by the UEFA, Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) for eligible European foot ...

when he scored in a 4–1 defeat to Slovan Bratislava on 4 November 2021. He announced his retirement from football on 9 October 2024.

International career

Chipolina made his international debut with the Gibraltar national team on 18 November 2013 in a 0–0 home draw with

Slovakia Slovakia, officially the Slovak Republic, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the west, and the Czech Republic to the northwest. Slovakia's m ...

, Gibraltar's first game since being admitted to

UEFA The Union of European Football Associations (UEFA ; ; ) is one of six continental bodies of governance in association football. It governs football, futsal and beach soccer, beach football in Europe and the List of transcontinental countries#A ...

. Chipolina scored Gibraltar's first UEFA goal, in their second official game, on 1 March 2014 against the

Faroe Islands The Faroe Islands ( ) (alt. the Faroes) are an archipelago in the North Atlantic Ocean and an autonomous territory of the Danish Realm, Kingdom of Denmark. Located between Iceland, Norway, and the United Kingdom, the islands have a populat ...

at Victoria Stadium, which they lost 4–1.

Personal life

Chipolina was born in

Enfield, London Enfield is a large town in north London, England, north of Charing Cross. It had a population of 333,587 in 2021. It includes the areas of Botany Bay, London, Botany Bay, Brimsdown, Bulls Cross, Bullsmoor, Bush Hill Park, Clay Hill, London, ...

, but moved to

at age four. He moved back to England aged 12, and attended

Southgate School Southgate School is a coeducational secondary school and sixth form located in the Oakwood, London, Oakwood area of London, England. The school is situated just east of the Cat Hill roundabout of the A111 road (England), A111 and A110 road (Eng ...

, where he featured heavily for the school football team and their offshoot, the Southgate Saints. During his time in

Southgate SouthGate is a shopping centre in Bath, Somerset, England, It is home to over fifty shops, ten restaurants, 99 homes and an 860-space underground car park. It replaced a shopping centre which was demolished in 2007. The new centre developed b ...

, he had a trial period of three months at

Luton Town Luton Town Football Club is a professional association football, football club from Luton, Bedfordshire, England. The club currently competes in EFL League One, the third level of the English football league system. Nicknamed "The Hatters", L ...

. He moved back to Gibraltar at age 18. Chipolina works as a

Customs Customs is an authority or Government agency, agency in a country responsible for collecting tariffs and for controlling International trade, the flow of goods, including animals, transports, personal effects, and hazardous items, into and out ...

Officer in Gibraltar. Roy is a cousin of fellow

footballers

Joseph Joseph is a common male name, derived from the Hebrew (). "Joseph" is used, along with " Josef", mostly in English, French and partially German languages. This spelling is also found as a variant in the languages of the modern-day Nordic count ...

(born 1987) and

Kenneth Kenneth is a given name of Gaelic origin. The name is an Anglicised form of two entirely different Gaelic personal names: ''Cainnech'' and '' Cináed''. The modern Gaelic form of ''Cainnech'' is ''Coinneach''; the name was derived from a byna ...

(born 1994) Chipolina.

Career statistics

International

:''Scores and results list Gibraltar's goal tally first, score column indicates score after each Chipolina goal.''

Honours

Lincoln Red Imps * Gibraltar League (15): 2006–07, 2007–08, 2008–09, 2009–10, 2010–11, 2011–12,

2012–13 1 (one, unit, unity) is a number, numeral, and glyph. It is the first and smallest positive integer of the infinite sequence of natural numbers. This fundamental property has led to its unique uses in other fields, ranging from science to sp ...

, 2013–14, 2014–15, 2015–16, 2017–18, 2018–19,

2020–21 The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen ...

, 2021–22,

2022–23 The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen ...

Rock Cup The Rock Cup is Gibraltar's premier cup football competition, and is organized annually by the Gibraltar Football Association (GFA). From 1894/95 Gibraltar's Cup Competition was known as "The Senior Merchant's Cup". In 1935 a new trophy was prese ...

(10): 2006–07, 2007–08, 2008–09, 2009–10, 2010–11,

2014 The year 2014 was marked by the surge of the Western African Ebola epidemic, West African Ebola epidemic, which began in 2013, becoming the List of Ebola outbreaks, most widespread outbreak of the Ebola, Ebola virus in human history, resul ...

2015 2015 was designated by the United Nations as: * International Year of Light * International Year of Soil __TOC__ Events January * January 1 – Lithuania officially adopts the euro as its currency, replacing the litas, and becomes ...

2016 2016 was designated as: * International Year of Pulses by the sixty-eighth session of the United Nations General Assembly. * International Year of Global Understanding (IYGU) by the International Council for Science (ICSU), the Internationa ...

2021 Like the year 2020, 2021 was also heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, due to the emergence of multiple Variants of SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19 variants. The major global rollout of COVID-19 vaccines, which began at the end of 2020, continued ...

, 2021–22 *

Pepe Reyes Cup The Pepe Reyes Cup is the Gibraltarian football super cup, contested by the winners of the Gibraltar Football League and the Rock Cup at the Victoria Stadium. In the event that a team wins both the GFL and the Rock Cup, the GFL runners up will fa ...

(9): 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2014, 2015,

2017 2017 was designated as the International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development by the United Nations General Assembly. Events January * January 1 – Istanbul nightclub shooting: A gunman dressed as Santa Claus opens fire at the ...

, 2022 * Gibraltar League Senior Cup (5): 2006–07, 2007–08, 2010–11, 2011–12, 2013–14

Notes

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Chipolina, Roy 1983 births Living people Gibraltarian men's footballers Gibraltar men's international footballers Men's association football defenders Lynx F.C. players Lincoln Red Imps F.C. players Footballers from the London Borough of Enfield People from Enfield, London Gibraltar Premier Division players Gibraltar pre-UEFA men's international footballers Gibraltar National League players English men's footballers 21st-century English sportsmen