Marlon Harewood

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Marlon Harewood
Personal information
Full name Marlon Anderson Harewood
Date of birth August 25, 1979 (1979-08-25) (age 28)
Place of birth    Hampstead, England
Height 1.86 m (6 ft 1 in)
Playing position Striker
Club information
Current club Aston Villa
Number 9
Senior clubs1
Years Club App (Gls)*
1996–2003
1998
1999
2003–2007
2007–		 Nottingham Forest
→ FC Haka (loan)
→ Ipswich Town (loan)
West Ham United
Aston Villa		 181 (51)
012 0(3)
006 0(1)
142 (47)
023 0(5)   

1 Senior club appearances and goals
counted for the domestic league only and
correct as of 27 April 2008 (UTC).
* Appearances (Goals)

Marlon Anderson Harewood (born August 25, 1979 in Hampstead, London) is an English footballer of Barbadian origin who plays as a forward for Aston Villa. He started his career at Nottingham Forest, had a successful spell on loan to FC Haka before joining West Ham United in 2003 and then Aston Villa in 2007.

Contents

[edit] Club career

[edit] Nottingham Forest

Harewood was a product of the Nottingham Forest youth system.[1], where he was inexplicably known as "Alf", and made his league debut in 1998. In the same year, he acquired experience abroad with a successful loan spell at FC Haka of the Finnish Veikkausliiga, winning both the Finnish championship and the Finnish Cup. In 1999, he had a further loan spell with Ipswich Town, scoring one goal in six appearances.[2] Harewood went on to forge a reputation as one of the most lethal strikers in the First Division. He scored 51 goals in 124 league games and 58 substitute appearances for Forest and also scored four goals in 23 cup appearances.[1] He formed a brilliant attacking partnership with close friend David Johnson. They scored 50 goals between them, of which Harewood netted 21 goals, to fire Paul Hart's Forest into the playoffs for the 2002-03 season. He caught the eye of West Ham fans when he scored for Forest in an FA Cup Third Round clash at Upton Park on 4 January 2003.[3] However, Harewood's contract was due to expire in summer 2004 and he made it clear he wanted to leave by refusing the offer of a new contract.[1]

[edit] West Ham United

He joined West Ham in November 2003 for a fee of £500,000.[4] After signing for West Ham, new manager Alan Pardew hoped that the powerful striker could have a similar effect on the Hammers promotion hopes the following season. Harewood was the top scorer for West Ham in 2004–05 with 23 goals in all competitions. He returned to top flight football following West Ham's playoff victory at the end of the 2004–05 season, and the 2005–06 season saw Marlon spearheading Pardew’s Premiership attack. He scored 14 league goals, including the first top flight hat-trick of the season in a 4–0 home victory against Aston Villa[5] and also put West Ham in front after just 52 seconds against Manchester United[6] also at Upton Park. Harewood became one of the top scoring strikers of the 2005-2006 season and after scoring the winning goal in the FA Cup semi-final against Middlesbrough,[7] Harewood responded by saying, "I can't really describe how I felt at the time; you can't put something like that into words, it's a chapter in my career that I have dreamed about doing since I was a little kid. After making the big step-up from Nottingham Forest to West Ham, I knew I had to work hard if I wanted to get to where the top strikers in the country were."

Following a torrid run of results for West Ham, including a defeat to League 1 side Chesterfield,[8] Harewood scored a dramatic last-minute winner against title-hopefuls Arsenal[9] in November 2006. This subsequently resulted in a highly emotional confrontation between the two managers. In May 2007, Harewood confirmed that he would leave West Ham in the summer after falling out of favour at the club.[10] In July, it was confirmed that Marlon was in talks at Aston Villa's training ground[11] and his agent, Mick McGuire, said, "Marlon has been in talks with Villa and everything should be concluded soon. Villa have come in at the 11th hour to take him."[12]

[edit] Aston Villa

Harewood joined Villa on 17 July 2007 for a fee reported by The Times to be £4 million,[13] signing a three-year deal.[14] Marlon said, "I was all set to sign [for Wigan] on the Monday when I got a phone call saying Martin O’Neill wanted to speak to me. I might have had a better chance of getting into Wigan’s first team, but, with no disrespect to them, when Martin O’Neill phones you up asking you to join a massive club like Aston Villa, and he’s explaining what he wants to do and how he wants to go about it, that sold it to me."[13]. Harewood scored his 100th career league goal as Aston Villa beat Blackburn Rovers 4–0 at Ewood Park on 28th November 2007.

Harewood continued to be a fringe player at Aston Villa throughout the winter and eventually scored his second goal in the 2–2 draw with Liverpool in January.

Harewood's most impressive Villa display came against Newcastle United on 9 January. After the match Kevin Keegan described Harewood and John Carew as "bullies".

His spirited substitute appearances for the club have turned around games and lead to him becoming a fan favourite at Villa Park. The chant "Feed the Hare and he will score" rang around the Madejski Stadium after he scored Villa's second against Reading on 24 February 2008.

Despite his good performances from the bench Martin O'Neill still uses him as a "super-sub" (albeit he did start against Manchester United due to injury troubles) and he continues to score goals. He scored his first goal at Villa Park in a 4–0 victory over Bolton and scored again the following week in a 6–0 win away to Derby County.

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c Forest can cash in on Harewood. Nottingham Evening Post (2007-06-06). Retrieved on 2007-06-10.
  2. ^ Marlon Harewood. Soccerbase, Racing Post. Retrieved on 2007-06-28.
  3. ^ "Hammers hold off Forest", BBC, 2003-01-04. Retrieved on 2007-06-10. 
  4. ^ "Harewood seals Hammers move", BBC, 2003-11-25. Retrieved on 2007-06-08. 
  5. ^ "West Ham 4-0 Aston Villa", BBC, 2005-09-12. Retrieved on 2007-06-10. 
  6. ^ "West Ham 1-2 Man Utd", BBC, 2005-11-27. Retrieved on 2007-06-10. 
  7. ^ "Middlesbrough 0-1 West Ham", BBC, 2006-04-23. Retrieved on 2007-06-10. 
  8. ^ "Chesterfield 2-1 West Ham", BBC, 2006-10-24. Retrieved on 2007-06-10. 
  9. ^ "West Ham 1-0 Arsenal", BBC, 2006-10-05. Retrieved on 2007-06-10. 
  10. ^ "Harewood ponders Upton Park exit", Premier League, 2007-05-01. Retrieved on 2007-06-10. 
  11. ^ Harewood in talks. AVFC (2007-07-16). Retrieved on 2007-07-06.
  12. ^ "Villa in late for Hammers' striker Harewood", Daily Mail, 2007-07-17. Retrieved on 2007-07-17. 
  13. ^ a b "Harewood happy to fight for his place after £5m transfer to Villa", The Times, 2007-07-18. Retrieved on 2007-07-18. 
  14. ^ Striker signs. AVFC (2007-07-17). Retrieved on 2007-07-17.

[edit] External links

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Aston Villa F.C. – current squad

3 Bouma • 5 Laursen • 6 Barry • 7 Young • 9 Harewood • 10 Carew • 11 Agbonlahor • 13 Taylor • 14 Delfouneso • 15 Davies • 16 Knight • 17 Salifou • 18 Routledge • 19 Petrov • 20 Reo-Coker • 26 Gardner • 27 Osbourne • 28 Maloney • 29 O'Halloran • Manager: O'Neill