Dion Dublin
Dion Dublin ( born April 22, 1969 in Leicester ) is a former English footballer. The four-time England international started his career as a prolific striker and set out on this position his name, showed in recent years, but his versatility by playing a pure defender. He was in an overall usable on any position player. His club stations included Norwich City, Cambridge United, Manchester United, Coventry City, Aston Villa, Leicester City, Celtic Glasgow.
Sports career
During his school years in Leicestershire Dion Dublin playing for Wigston Fields, a local club of a small village in South Leicester. After Dublin in 1985 left school, started his career in professional football with Norwich City, but never made it there in the first team and left the club in 1988 again. He went to Cambridge and his good eye for goal made sure that the club rose from the fourth division after two consecutive successful seasons in 1990 and 1991 to the second division. He also played an important role as Cambridge the very last season of the old Second Division in fifth place in the table ended ( the best result in the club's history ). As Cambridge missing out on promotion via the detour of the playoffs, Dublin should be sold. For £ 1 million he was sold to Manchester United, but missed much of the 1992/93 season due to a broken leg. Still, he had enough appearances in the Premier League, to obtain a Master of medals.
In the season 1993/94 Dublin regained his fitness, but could not drive out of the starting eleven the furious aufspielenden Éric Cantona. He did not get the win the FA Cup on the field and did not play enough to get a championship medal in the Premiership. Soon after the end of the season he was sold for £ 2,000,000 at Coventry City.
In the four and a half years at Coventry Dublin became one of the best strikers in the league and played in the season 1997/98 for the first time for the national team. This season he presented with 23 goals (18 in the league, four in the FA Cup, one in the Coca Cola Cup) the club record for most goals scored in the highest league. Together with Blackburn's Chris Sutton and Liverpool's Michael Owen, he shared the award for the best striker of the league ( every one of them had 18 goals in the league scored ).
Surprisingly, Dublin was not in the England squad for the World Cup 1998, but his performances in the club attracted attention. In autumn 1998, he spent £ 4,500,000 to Coventry's arch rivals Aston Villa. The News of the World reported on 25 October 1998 that Blackburn had made an offer over £ 6,000,000 for Dublin. This was angered at this time about Coventry, had since the club president Bryan Richardson worked on the new book "Staying Up" and thus granted him the authorization. In a passage of the book Richardson is involved in a frank interview with Manchester United's manager Alex Ferguson, which rotates among other things, to the enormous size of Dublin's " masculinity ". In December 1999 he suffered during a game for Aston Villa against Sheffield Wednesday a life-threatening neck fracture, for which he was inserted into the neck of a titanium plate that holds three cervical vertebrae. In April 2000 he was able to help a week after his recovery Aston Villa on reaching their first FA Cup final in 43 years by transforming a penalty against Bolton Wanderers on penalties in the semi-finals. The finale Villa lost 0-1 against Chelsea.
After he had recovered his fitness back, Dublin remained until 2002, at Villa Park until he had to fight for a place in the starting eleven with Juan Pablo Angel and Peter Crouch. Dublin was loaned out for a few weeks in the First Division to the FC Millwall, where he scored three goals in seven games. When he returned to Villa, he had defended his place and made Darius Vassell a strike partnership. His expiring in summer 2004 contract was not renewed. He joined Leicester City, which had just been relegated from the Premiership Barclaycard in the just renamed Coca Cola Football League Championship. In his first season with the Foxes, he scored only four goals in 38 league and cup matches.
During the 2005/06 season he lost his place as master striker of the team to Mark de Vries, but ran from then on as a defender. His contract with Leicester City was disbanded on 30 January 2006 by mutual agreement. On the same day he signed a fixed-term until the end of the season contract with Celtic. The short interlude brought Dublin some great successes. Celtic won the championship in the Scottish Premier League, as well as the Scottish League Cup. In the final, after coming off the bench, he scored the winning goal for Celtic and also played in the league often enough to get awarded a Master of medals, as well as with Manchester United 13 years ago. In the league he stood three times for Celtic in the starting eleven, eight times came off the bench and scored a goal. Dublin then returned to his youth club Norwich City and played there until the end of the 2007/ 08 another 70 second division games in which twelve gates reach him.
After the football
Following his career in Dublin occasionally worked as an expert for the channel Sky Sports. There he confirmed during Champions League matches, for example, as a co- commentator alongside Martin Tyler.