George McCartney
George McCartney (2012 )
George McCartney ( born April 29, 1981 in Belfast ) is a Northern Irish footballer who is currently on loan from Sunderland to the second division side West Ham United.
Playing career
The defender from Belfast won the 1998 English club Sunderland AFC his first professional contract. However, he made his debut only in 2000 when League Cup match against Luton Town. After the 2002/ 03 season Sunderland climbed out of the Premier League from the Football League Championship. Piece by piece McCartney established itself in the second division as a regular player and solved in the season 2003/ 04 Jason McAteer from as team captain, because this is seriously injured. In the following season Sunderland went back up to the first division and McCartney was voted by the fans of the club player of the season. The defender impressed permanently as service providers and therefore got from his then coach Mick McCarthy the title "Mr. Assigned Consistent " ( German for " Mr. Consistent " ). During the 2005/06 season McCartney fell because of an injury of six months, and Sunderland had a table Last descending again. The Northern Irishman joined on 8 August 2006 in exchange for Clive Clarke and a transfer fee of £ 600,000 to West Ham United. In the 2006/07 season McCartney initially sat on the bench, but then evolved to a regular for the London club, who managed to avoid relegation on the final day. In the following season 2007/ 08 the defender completed all the games in the league and in the cup.
September 1, 2008 McCartney moved back to his former club Sunderland AFC, and signed there a contract for five years. He was the tenth signing of coach Roy Keane, who shortly afterwards resigned his office because the Black Cats after 5 defeats in 6 games were on the relegation zone. At the end of the season the team managed just yet in the league. In the 2009/10 season, McCartney's team strengthened in midfield in the Premier League and managed to avoid relegation problems. Even if the defender completed almost all of the games was the guarantor for this success of the newly signed teammate Darren Bent, who scored half of the goals of Sunderland.
National
George McCartney graduated five caps for the U -21 Northern Ireland and so far 34 for the senior team. His debut celebrated on 5 September 2001 in a 3-0 win against Northern Ireland Iceland in qualifying for the 2002 World Cup. In this game, he scored the 3-0 in the 60th minute and so far the only international goal in his career. After being due to a dispute with coach Lawrie Sanchez initially denied no more international match in 2005, he returned in the Game against Liechtenstein on 22 August 2007 under new coach Nigel Worthington back into the team back. A few days later, he drew another stir when he looks at his team mates Keith Gillespie beat at the home of the game in Iceland on the plane. Before that Gillespie had shot themselves in stoppage time in the game and Northern Ireland lost 1-2. Along with Gillespie he had to pay the equivalent of 225,000 euro fine for this act.