Stan Collymore

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Stan Collymore
Personal information
Full name	Stanley Victor Collymore
Date of birth	22 January 1971 (1971-01-22) (age 37)
Place of birth	Stone, England
Height	6 ft 2 in (1.88 m)
Playing position	Striker
Youth clubs
1988–1989 1989–1990	Walsall Wolverhampton Wanderers
Senior clubs1
Years	Club	App (Gls)*
1990 1990–1992 1992–1993 1993–1995 1995–1997 1997–2000 1999 2000 2000–2001 2001	Stafford Rangers Crystal Palace Southend United Nottingham Forest Liverpool Aston Villa → Fulham (loan) Leicester City Bradford City Real Oviedo Total	020 00(1) 030 0(15) 065 0(41) 063 0(28) 046 00(7) 006 00(0) 011 00(5) 007 00(2) 003 00(0) 251 0(99)
National team2
1995–1997	England	003 00(0)
1 Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only and correct as of 14:11, 17 December 2007 (UTC). 2 National team caps and goals correct as of 14:11, 17 December 2007 (UTC). * Appearances (Goals)

Stanley Victor Collymore (born 22 January 1971) is an English retired footballer who was active at senior level from 1990 until 2001.

Contents 1 Football career 1.1 Early career 1.2 Crystal Palace and Southend United 1.3 Nottingham Forest 1.4 Liverpool 1.5 Aston Villa and Leicester City 1.6 Bradford City 2 Post-football career 3 Controversy and infamy 4 References 5 External links

[edit] Football career

[edit] Early career

Collymore was born in Stone, Staffordshire. A talented centre forward, Collymore started his career as an apprentice footballer with Walsall, and also Wolverhampton Wanderers, before being released and signing for then Conference team, Stafford Rangers, where again he caught the eye of several football league clubs by demonstrating the ability for spectacular goals before being given his chance as a full-time professional with Crystal Palace at the age of 19, when he signed for them in December 1990.

[edit] Crystal Palace and Southend United

After learning his trade as understudy to the prolific Crystal Palace partnership of Mark Bright and Ian Wright, Collymore dropped down a division to Southend United and there scored 18 goals in 31 games to help keep the club in the then First Division when the odds of relegation seemed certain.

Collymore enjoyed his time at Southend saying, "I count helping to keep Southend in the first division in my season there as one of my finest achievements."^[1]

[edit] Nottingham Forest

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He was then snapped up by Nottingham Forest. He hit 24 goals - 19 in 28 league games - as Forest won an immediate return to the Premier League. At that time his manager Frank Clark said a £10m offer might tempt him to sell. The 1994-95 saw Collymore return 25 goals as Forest finished third in the Premiership and qualified for the UEFA Cup. At the season's end Collymore was rewarded with his first England cap against Japan and Terry Venables also gave him a run out against Brazil. An eventful summer saw Collymore move to Merseyside in an £8.5m deal and in his first season at Liverpool he netted 19 times as the Reds finished third in the Premiership.

However such were the quality of his goals, usually spectacular solo efforts, Nottingham Forest bought the striker for a club-record fee that reached £3 million in the summer of 1993, having only been bought by Southend also for a club record fee of £150,000 six months earlier. Collymore's goalscoring record with Forest (50 goals in 71 games) was exceptional, and after being the main catalyst for helping Forest to immediate promotion back to the Premiership in 1993, cemented his reputation as one of the brightest young talents in world football by finishing his first season in the top flight with 25 goals and helping a team that had been relegated only two years earlier to finish third in the Premiership, a feat now that would guarantee UEFA Champions League qualification. Supporters at Forest regarded 'Stan The Man' as one of their greatest all-time strikers, he was skilful with lightning pace and scorer of many spectacular goals. Seemingly by 1995 he was the complete player, he could score with either foot and at 6 feet plus was also a threat in the air. This prompted Liverpool to come in for him with a then British transfer record bid of £8.5 million at the end of the 1994-95 season.

[edit] Liverpool

Collymore scored a spectacular goal on his Liverpool debut against Sheffield Wednesday and began a fruitful, enigmatic, and controversial two-year spell at Anfield. He scored at a ratio of a goal every other game and created many goals in a partnership with Robbie Fowler. He also scored two goals, including the winner against Newcastle United at Anfield in a game that was regarded as one of the most exciting in the history of the English Premiership. Indeed, it was voted by viewers of Sky Sports as the greatest sporting moment in the channel's first ten years.^[2]

Collymore also helped Liverpool to third place in the Premiership, the club's highest position since winning the old First Division title in 1990. Undoubtedly a great footballer on his day, after two seasons at Anfield the striker was sold to Aston Villa in 1997 for £7 million, again a club record.

[edit] Aston Villa and Leicester City

In the three years that he spent at the club, Collymore scored 15 goals but failed to hold down a regular place . Highs included being only the third Aston Villa player in history to score a hat-trick in European competition (the other two being his boyhood idols Gary Shaw and Peter Withe) and also bagging two goals against Liverpool in a 2-1 home victory, however, his fate was sealed once the infamous incident with Ulrika Jonsson during the World Cup of 1998 and was subsequently sent on a season long loan to Fulham and was ultimately sold to Leicester City where under Martin O'Neill he regained some of the early form when he scored a hat trick against Sunderland in a 5-2 victory but he suffered a leg break which effectively ended his footballing career.

[edit] Bradford City

He moved to Bradford City in October 2000 on a free transfer.^[3] He scored an overhead kick on his debut against Leeds United in a West Yorkshire derby at Valley Parade on 29 October, which ended 1–1.^[4] However, Collymore celebrated in front of the visiting Leeds fans and he faced Football Association charges.^[5] He was substituted at half-time in his second game as Bradford lost 4–3 to Newcastle United in the League Cup,^[6] and missed the following game at Charlton Athletic because of flu and a sore wisdom tooth.^[7] In Collymore's absence, City lost 2–0, and manager Chris Hutchings was sacked two days later.^[8] Jim Jefferies was appointed as new City manager, and he won his first home game in charge 2–1 against Coventry City when Collymore scored Bradford's first goal.^[9] However only a month later, Collymore, and other highly-paid players Benito Carbone and Dan Petrescu were transfer-listed.^[10] Collymore was linked with various clubs, but eventually signed for Spanish Primera Liga side Real Oviedo on 31 January 2001, when he was greeted by 1,500 fans.^[11] He had played just eight games for Bradford, scoring two goals.^[12]

[edit] Post-football career

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Collymore contributed to his biography with Oliver Holt (2004). Stan : tackling my demons. ISBN 0-00-719807-8.  which was released to critical acclaim for its portrayal of the modern footballer. In 2005 he played the character Kevin Franks in the film Basic Instinct 2 alongside Sharon Stone.^[13] Collymore is seen and heard regularly on television and radio in the UK, and owns Maverick Spirit Productions, a UK Television Production Company.

In 2007 Collymore went back to full time sports broadcasting. He summarised for Australian television on the FA Cup Final between Manchester United and Chelsea at Wembley and the UEFA Champions League Final between Liverpool and AC Milan in Athens.

Collymore is a regular on BBC Radio Five Live's Monday night club, as a sumariser on BBC Radio 5 live's Premier League coverage and writes a Monday Column for the Daily Mirror newspaper. Since November 2007 he has hosted the weekly Football Magazine show Central Soccer Night on ITV Central, and has commentated on the 26th African Cup of Nations for British Eurosport. He is also a regular commentator and studio analyst for two foreign broadcasters, GTV (Africa) & SBS Sport (Australia).

Collymore was part of the BBC Radio Five Live commenatary team for the Champions League Final between Manchester United and Chelsea in Moscow but has since joined talkSPORT to co-present their evening show with Danny Kelly and co-commentate on their Premier League and Champions League coverage.

[edit] Controversy and infamy

Collymore spent many days on the front pages of the tabloid newspapers in 1998, the result of the disintegration of his relationship with Swedish-born British television presenter Ulrika Jonsson after it was revealed he had struck her.^[14] Collymore later courted more controversy when he was caught practicing the sexual act of dogging, an accusation which was later confirmed.^[15][16]

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Stan Collymore career stats at Soccerbase
• Daily Mirror Column
• MySpace Page