Sam Parkin

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Sam Parkin
Personal information
Full name	Sam Parkin
Date of birth	14 March 1981
Place of birth	Roehampton, England
Height	6'2
Playing position	Centre Forward
Club information
Current club	Luton Town
Number	19
Youth clubs
	Chelsea
Senior clubs1
Years	Club	App (Gls)*
2000-2002 2000 2001 2001 2002 2002-2005 2005-2006 2006-	Chelsea Millwall (loan) Wycombe Wanderers (loan) Oldham Athletic (loan) Northampton Town (loan) Swindon Town Ipswich Town Luton Town	0 (0) 7 (4) 13 (2) 7 (3) 48 (5) 142 (73) 22 (5) 7(1)
1 Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only and correct as of 25/8/2006. * Appearances (Goals)

Sam Parkin (born March 14, 1981 in Roehampton, South London) is a professional footballer who currently plays for Luton Town in the Football League Championship. He is known as a prolific striker in the lower leagues.

Parkin started his career at Chelsea. However he failed to make the breakthrough and was loaned out to Millwall, Northampton Town, Wycombe Wanderers and Oldham Athletic with varying degrees of success. In 2002 he signed for Swindon Town then in the Second Division. In his three seasons at the County Ground he quickly became one of the most feared goalscorers in England, scoring 67 goals in 120 starts. In the summer of 2005 he was signed by Joe Royle, manager of Ipswich Town, on a four year deal. Several other clubs, notably Reading and Brighton, and Norwich, had also been interested in signing him. He made his Ipswich debut against Cardiff City and scored on his second game against QPR.

In a relatively poor season Parkin managed to maintain being Town's top scorer for much of the season despite a fairly small goal return. However towards the end of the season he became injured with a broken ankle and was replaced by Nicky Forster his intended striker partner at the start of the season as top goal scorer. The Ipswich Town fans failed to warm to Parkin during the last season but was criticized for his seeming lack of work rate and also lack of pace. However there still hopes for next season as he among the other town Strikers Nicky Forster, Alan Lee and Dean Bowditch have all returned to fitness.

Parkin is eligible to play for Scotland through his Scottish mother, and made his Scotland debut in a "future" international against Austria. Unfortunately he was injured early in the match and had to be substituted. He has not been picked again and remains eligible to play for England.

He was affectionately nicknamed 'Super Sammy Parkin' by Swindon Town fans during his time at the club.

In the first Ipswich game of the new 2006/07 season Parkin did not even make the bench, making him at the time Ipswich's 6th choice striker and giving his critics more reason to speculate him departing the club soon, he has proven to be a controversial figure causing many arguments between fans, one side saying he cannot make the Championship level and the others saying he is a proven goalscorer who scored 5 in 17 last season despite injury (but all away from home).

On August 25, 2006 Sam was transferred to Luton Town for a fee of £340,000. Sam only managed a handful of appearances before injury struck, and he has been ruled out for most of the season. It has been obvious to Luton fans just how much Sam was worth to the team, as the form since his injury has been terrible compared to when he was playing.

Luton Town F.C. - Current Squad

1 Beresford | 2 Foley | 3 Davis | 4 Coyne | 5 Perrett | 6 Underwood | 7 Spring | 8 Robinson | 9 Runström | 10 Feeney | 11 Morgan | 15 O'Leary | 16 Emanuel | 17 Langley | 18 Brković | 19 Parkin | 20 Boyd | 21 Keane | 22 Stevens | 23 Idrizaj | 24 Ross | 25 Barnett | 26 Heikkinen | 28 Bell | 29 Andrew | 30 Talbot | 31 Carlisle | 32 Asafu-Adjaye | 33 Brill | 34 Barrett | 35 Pendleton | Manager: Blackwell