Profile of Craig Bellamy on Famous Like Me

Craig Bellamy (born July 13, 1979 in Cardiff) is a Welsh international football player. A quick, hard-working striker, he currently plays for Blackburn Rovers in the English Premiership.

His Welsh international record (as of 30 March 2005) is 33 caps and 9 goals.

Earlier in his career Bellamy played for Norwich City (1997-2000) and Coventry City (2000-2001), before moving to Newcastle United in the summer of 2001 for £6,000,000. He scored on his Newcastle debut, in their 4-0 defeat of Belgian side Lokeren. Under manager Bobby Robson he formed a productive striking partnership with Alan Shearer, Bellamy's pace complementing the former England captain's guile. Bellamy has a very direct style of play - he can terrorize the opposition's defence with his speedy runs while on the ball.

Probably his most important moment for Newcastle United was scoring 2 goals (including the winner) in the 3-2 win over Feyenoord which took them through to the second group stage of the UEFA Champions League in 2002. Unfortunately in the next match (a 4-1 defeat to Inter Milan) he was sent off for kicking out at an Inter defender, which resulted in a 3-match ban. His aggression seems to be one of his bad points: in March 2003 he was alleged to have racially attacked someone at a nightclub in Cardiff.

After Bobby Robson's departure in August 2004, Bellamy had a very public falling-out with his replacement as Newcastle manager, Graeme Souness. On 23 January 2005, Bellamy was omitted from the team for a Premiership match with Arsenal. Before the match, Souness said that Bellamy had a hamstring problem, but contradicted himself in a post-match interview, claiming that Bellamy was benched for being unprepared to play as a right-side midfielder. Minutes later, Bellamy gave an interview of his own saying that he was prepared to play in any position. He admitted that he had threatened to fake injury ahead of the Arsenal match, and in a later interview accused Souness of lying about him. Two days after the match, the club fined Bellamy two weeks' wages (about £80,000), and he was loaned to Celtic F.C. of the Scottish Premier League for the remainder of the season after he rejected a move to Birmingham City.

He scored nine goals for Celtic in the remainder of the season, and the club were keen to sign him permanently, but on 7 July 2005 it was announced that he is to return to the Premiership with Blackburn Rovers, after signing a 4 year contract, for a transfer fee of under £5,000,000, where he will be reunited with former Wales manager Mark Hughes.

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