Ah, Craig Bellamy. Man of many clubs, many words, some goals, and one enormous cumulative transfer fee. Value for money?
£6m Norwich to Coventry: Craig’s Norwich team-mates supposedly take to locking him in the coach toilet on away trips, so unbearably audible is his level of self-confidence.
£8m Coventry to Newcastle: Craig gives a public interview to SSN slamming Graeme Souness ‘for not talking to him’, goes on loan to Celtic, but still manages to find time to send abusive text messages to Alan Shearer. Also indulges in the ill-advised tendency of wearing his hair ‘long’ during this period.
£8m Newcastle to Blackburn: Uneventful.
£6.5m Blackburn to Liverpool: Craig is signed by Rafa Benitez, fulfilling his ambition of playing for the club he supported as a boy (apart from Cardiff, obviously). Celebrates his time at Anfield by making sulky faces from the bench and hitting John-Arne Riise with an eight iron. Does a very clever and ironic celebration in the Nou Camp.
£7.5m Liverpool to West Ham: Amazingly Liverpool manage to turn a profit on the Welshman, as he moves to the strikers’ graveyard of Upton Park.
£14.5m West Ham to Manchester City: A lack of goals and multiple injuries endear him to nobody at the Boleyn Ground, and as such the West Ham board bite City’s hand off when offered a predictably, ‘because we can’, inflated offer for Bellamy. Craig rediscovers his Blackburn and Wales form under Mark Hughes, but on Roberto Mancini’s arrival, reverts to his ‘unappreciated’ persona – and celebrates City’s failure to qualify for the Champions League by ‘high-5′ing’ Harry Redknapp.
August 2010: Despite dodging four winding-up orders, and owing money all over the football league, Cardiff City prioritise appropriately to bring Craig back to Wales at huge expense. Unfortunately, the Bluebird’s hope of making a killing on shirt-sales is undermined by the club shop running out of ‘Ys”, cue ‘humorous’ Sky Sports News featurette and possibly ironic spellings of Bellamy.
That’s £50.5 Million spent on Craig Bellamy. What recession?
