by redsince2001 » Wed Jul 05, 2006 11:21 am
The Life And Strife Of Craig Bellamy...
Tuesday June 20 2006
By Chris Quirke and Sarah Winterburn
With a likely move to Liverpool coming soon, Football365 looks at the good, but more the bad, of Craig Bellamy. From throwing chairs in airports to smacking women. What a lovely, lovely chap he is...
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* Bellamy started his career with Norwich. Rumour has it that his teammates used to lock him in a cupboard because he was so annoying.
* At the age of 16, Bellamy became the fifth youngest Welshman to play for the Wales Under-21 side.
* He joined Coventry for £6.5m in 2000 from Norwich only to leave for Newcastle after Coventry were relegated in the same season he joined them - Bellamy's six goals failing to keep the Sky Blues in the Premiership.
* Bellamy was sent home in disgrace from a club trip to Spain in November 2001 after going out drinking with Kieron Dyer, Carl Cort and Andy Griffin when he was supposed to be at a club dinner honouring chairman Sir John Hall.
* The 22-year-old Bellamy assaulted a female student outside a nightclub in Newcastle - hitting her in the face when she tried to get in Kieron Dyer's car - and was cautioned after admitting the offence. He was fined a massive £750.
* On the pitch Bellamy was given a three-match ban after headbutting Dynamo Kiev defender Tiberiu Ghioane in the face.
* The much more mature 23-year-old Craig Bellamy was accused of racially abusing an Asian bouncer in Jongleurs club, Cardiff in March 2003. He was thrown out of the club, down the stairs, and was given a severe warning by Toon chairman Freddy Shepherd. Newspaper reports suggested he had called the bouncer a "f***ing Paki" and a "Paki c***", but he was never charged.
* Bellamy threw a chair at Newcastle coach John Carver at an airport in March 2004 during a furious row about car parking.
* In October 2004 Bellamy was substituted by Graeme Souness and responded with a four-letter foulmouthed tirade. It was caught on camera. Later the same month, Souness and Bellamy squared up during a training-ground bust-up which ended with the Scot dragging the little Welshman into the gymnasium.
* Then in January 2005 came the big bust-up, Souness accusing Bellamy of feigning injury to get out of playing out of position. Bellamy went on TV and accused his boss of 'lying', prompting Souness to claim he would never play for Toon again.
* In January 2005 Bellamy went on loan to Celtic for half a season, scoring seven goals in 12 league matches.
* Sent a text message saying 'I am Craig Bellamy and I don’t sign for s*** football clubs' to Shepherd when he tried to sell him to Birmingham for £6m.
* Bellamy was accused of sending Alan Shearer nasty text messages - including one saying 'You couldn’t even kiss my a**e' after Newcastle’s 4-1 defeat to Manchester United in the FA Cup semi-final.
* In the summer of 2005 Bellamy surprisingly teamed up with former Welsh international coach, Mark Hughes, at Blackburn Rovers, dismissing Champions League qualifiers Everton, who showed a keen interest in the striker.
* Bellamy had to cut short his honeymoon this summer - he got married to his childhood sweetheart earlier this month despite being the subject of various kiss-and-tells over the years - as he had to attend a police station in connection with an assault on a girl at a Cardiff nightclu
"we were a family club. There was no ‘them and us’ attitude, it was just ‘us’. "-Kenny Daglish