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Kevin Campbell (footballer)
Encyclopedia
Kevin Joseph Campbell is an English
former football player who played as a striker
.
, joining the club on schoolboy forms in 1985. He had a prolific run in the club's youth team (with whom he won the FA Youth Cup
and scored 59 goals in a season), but despite making his first-team debut against Everton
on 7 May 1988, the forward positions were usually taken by Paul Merson
and Alan Smith
.
Campbell came to prominence during a loan spell at Leyton Orient
in 1989, when he scored 9 goals in 16 games; Orient manager Frank Clark wanted to make the move permanent but Arsenal refused to sell. After a poor start to the 1989-90
season he was again loaned out, this time to Leicester City
. However, the following season (1990-91
) he established himself in the Arsenal team, scoring eight times in ten matches during the run-in to the club's First Division
title win.
Despite Arsenal signing Ian Wright
in September 1991, Campbell continued to play for Arsenal, although he was often overshadowed by his more prolific partner. Nevertheless, he scored some crucial goals for Arsenal, including last-minute equalisers against Millwall
and Derby County
in Arsenal's successful FA Cup
and League Cup
campaigns in 1992-93
. The following season he scored 19 (his best single season for the Gunners) and won the Cup Winners' Cup, but his form deserted him in 1994-95
, and the arrivals of John Hartson
and Dennis Bergkamp
threatened his place in the side. In all he played 224 times for Arsenal, scoring 59 goals.
In the summer of 1995 Campbell was sold to former European champions Nottingham Forest
for an initial fee of £2.5m, where he spent three seasons. He was part of the team that was relegated in 1997, but his 23 goals the following season helped a return to the top flight at the first attempt. However, Campbell controversially left Forest at the end of that season to join Turkish
side Trabzonspor
for £2.5m, causing Forest team-mate Pierre van Hooijdonk to go "on strike". His time in Trabzon
was brief and unhappy; he left the club after seven months after a racist
incident involving the club president, Mehmet Ali Yılmaz, who called him a "discoloured cannibal" and also criticised him by saying "We bought him as a goal machine, but he turned out to be a washing machine
". He was very popular during his time at the club with the fans. To show solidarity with him when he asked to leave following this incident, the two club captains, Ogün Temizkanoğlu
and Abdullah Ercan
, were with him during his press conference in which he stated his reasons for leaving.
Everton, who were battling against relegation from the Premier League, signed Campbell on loan in March 1999. His impact on the side was immediate as he scored 9 goals in 8 games, making him Everton's top goalscorer that season and saving them from the drop. His 6 goals in his first 3 games earned him the April player of the month award, the first on-loan player ever to win it.
Campbell's move to Everton was made permanent in the summer of 1999 for a fee of £3million. In the first half of the 1999-2000 season
, he scored Everton's winning goal in the Merseyside derby
at Anfield
against Liverpool
.
He was Everton's leading goalscorer for both of the following two seasons, scoring 12 and 9 goals respectively, although Everton remained disappointing in the Premier League as they finished in the bottom half of the table both times during a run of bottom-half finishes which lasted from 1997 to 2002. After scoring only 4 goals during the 2001-02
campaign, he was once again the club's top goalscorer the following year when he scored 10 times. This would prove to be Campbell's final season as first-choice for Everton as he struggled to battle both injuries and the emergence of a number of strikers, in particular Wayne Rooney
. Campbell left in January 2005 on a free transfer to West Bromwich Albion
, who were bottom of the Premiership. He was appointed team captain shortly after his arrival and successfully led the club to Premiership survival (this was the first time that a club which had been bottom of the league on Christmas Day had survived relegation).
However, in May 2006, after WBA's relegation to the Championship
, Campbell was released by the club. He signed for Cardiff City
on a free transfer on 2 August 2006. He scored his first and only goal for the first team in an FAW Premier Cup
quarter-final match away at Carmarthen Town
on February 13, 2007, and was released by the club in May 2007, subsequently retiring from the game to pursue business interests. His final competitive appearance came against former club West Brom on 20 February 2007.
Campbell earned 4 caps for the England U-21s
and 1 for England B
. He has the distinction of being the English player who has scored the most goals in the Premier League without earning an England cap.
the label's first signing. But in December 2004, with the artist still signed to 2 Wikid, Campbell was forced to obtain a court injunction against rival label Jet Star
, in order to prevent it from releasing Morrison's album Innocent Man
. The injunction was lifted shortly afterwards, and the album was eventually released sometime later.
Campbell was featured on the Sky Sports
series "Where are They Now?" in 2008, when he was the co-owner of a security company "T1 Protection", specialising in supplying bodyguards to celebrities and other wealthy customers whilst traveling abroad. He also commentated with Asia
-based TEN Sports
for their Premier League and Champions League
coverage.
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
former football player who played as a striker
Striker
Forwards, also known as strikers, are the players on a team in association football who play nearest to the opposing team's goal, and are therefore principally responsible for scoring goals...
.
Playing career
Campbell began his career as a trainee with ArsenalArsenal F.C.
Arsenal Football Club is a professional English Premier League football club based in North London. One of the most successful clubs in English football, it has won 13 First Division and Premier League titles and 10 FA Cups...
, joining the club on schoolboy forms in 1985. He had a prolific run in the club's youth team (with whom he won the FA Youth Cup
FA Youth Cup
The Football Association Youth Challenge Cup is an English football competition run by The Football Association for under–18 sides. Only those players between the age of 15 and 18 on 31 August of the current season are eligible to take part...
and scored 59 goals in a season), but despite making his first-team debut against Everton
Everton F.C.
Everton Football Club are an English professional association football club from the city of Liverpool. The club competes in the Premier League, the highest level of English football...
on 7 May 1988, the forward positions were usually taken by Paul Merson
Paul Merson
Paul Charles Merson is a retired English football player, and former player-manager of Walsall. His playing career has included spells at Arsenal, Middlesbrough, Aston Villa, Portsmouth and finishing his playing career at Tamworth. He also played for England 21 times...
and Alan Smith
Alan M. Smith
Alan Martin Smith is an English former football striker. He played for Leicester City and Arsenal at professional level, and won thirteen caps for England.-Leicester City:...
.
Campbell came to prominence during a loan spell at Leyton Orient
Leyton Orient F.C.
Leyton Orient F.C. are an English professional football club in East London. They currently play in Football League One and are known to their fans as the O's.Leyton Orient have spent one season in the top flight of English football, in 1962–63...
in 1989, when he scored 9 goals in 16 games; Orient manager Frank Clark wanted to make the move permanent but Arsenal refused to sell. After a poor start to the 1989-90
1989-90 in English football
-European competitions:English clubs were still banned from competing in European competitions following the Heysel Stadium disaster.- First Division :...
season he was again loaned out, this time to Leicester City
Leicester City F.C.
Leicester City Football Club , also known as The Foxes, is an English professional football club based at the King Power Stadium in Leicester...
. However, the following season (1990-91
1990-91 in English football
The 1990–91 season was the 111th season of competitive football in England.- First Division :Arsenal won the league. Runners-up spot was achieved by Liverpool, who had led the table for much of the first half of the season but had been shell-shocked in February by the sudden resignation of manager...
) he established himself in the Arsenal team, scoring eight times in ten matches during the run-in to the club's First Division
Football League First Division
The First Division was a division of The Football League between 1888 and 2004 and the highest division in English football until the creation of the Premier League in 1992. The secondary tier in English football has since become known as the Championship....
title win.
Despite Arsenal signing Ian Wright
Ian Wright
Ian Edward Wright, MBE is a retired English footballer turned television and radio personality.Wright enjoyed success with London clubs Crystal Palace and Arsenal, spending six years with the former and seven years with the latter. With Arsenal he has lifted the Premier League title and both major...
in September 1991, Campbell continued to play for Arsenal, although he was often overshadowed by his more prolific partner. Nevertheless, he scored some crucial goals for Arsenal, including last-minute equalisers against Millwall
Millwall F.C.
Millwall Football Club is an English professional football club based in South Bermondsey, south east London, that plays in the Football League Championship, the second tier of English football. Founded as Millwall Rovers in 1885, the club has retained its name despite having last played in the...
and Derby County
Derby County F.C.
Derby County Football Club is an English football based in Derby. the club play in the Football League Championship and is notable as being one of the twelve founder members of the Football League in 1888 and is, therefore, one of only ten clubs to have competed in every season of the English...
in Arsenal's successful FA Cup
FA Cup
The Football Association Challenge Cup, commonly known as the FA Cup, is a knockout cup competition in English football and is the oldest association football competition in the world. The "FA Cup" is run by and named after The Football Association and usually refers to the English men's...
and League Cup
Football League Cup
The Football League Cup, commonly known as the League Cup or, from current sponsorship, the Carling Cup, is an English association football competition. Like the FA Cup, it is played on a knockout basis...
campaigns in 1992-93
1992-93 in English football
The 1992–1993 season was the 113th season of competitive football in England.-Overview:This season saw the birth of the FA Premier League. This meant a break-up of the 104-year-old Football League that had operated until then with four divisions....
. The following season he scored 19 (his best single season for the Gunners) and won the Cup Winners' Cup, but his form deserted him in 1994-95
1994-95 in English football
-Premiership:Blackburn Rovers ended their 81-year wait for the league title thanks to the strike partnership of Alan Shearer and Chris Sutton which scored a total of more than 50 league goals. Manchester United would have made it three league titles in a row if they had been able to turn a 1-1 draw...
, and the arrivals of John Hartson
John Hartson
John Hartson is a former Welsh international footballer who played as a striker, best known for his spells with West Ham and Celtic. Hartson also featured prominently for Wales, earning 51 caps until his international retirement in 2006...
and Dennis Bergkamp
Dennis Bergkamp
Dennis Nicolaas Bergkamp , is a former Dutch professional footballer who is currently the assistant manager to Frank de Boer at Ajax. At club level he played for Ajax, Internazionale, and Arsenal, and also represented the Netherlands at international level...
threatened his place in the side. In all he played 224 times for Arsenal, scoring 59 goals.
In the summer of 1995 Campbell was sold to former European champions Nottingham Forest
Nottingham Forest F.C.
Nottingham Forest Football Club is an English Association Football club based in West Bridgford, Nottingham, that plays in the Football League Championship...
for an initial fee of £2.5m, where he spent three seasons. He was part of the team that was relegated in 1997, but his 23 goals the following season helped a return to the top flight at the first attempt. However, Campbell controversially left Forest at the end of that season to join Turkish
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
side Trabzonspor
Trabzonspor
Trabzonspor is a professional Turkish football club located in the city of Trabzon, Turkey. Formed in 1967 through a merger of several local clubs, Trabzonspor won six championships in Turkish Super League. The Club won their first Championship title in 1975 which is also the Club's initiation year...
for £2.5m, causing Forest team-mate Pierre van Hooijdonk to go "on strike". His time in Trabzon
Trabzon
Trabzon is a city on the Black Sea coast of north-eastern Turkey and the capital of Trabzon Province. Trabzon, located on the historical Silk Road, became a melting pot of religions, languages and culture for centuries and a trade gateway to Iran in the southeast and the Caucasus to the northeast...
was brief and unhappy; he left the club after seven months after a racist
Racism
Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...
incident involving the club president, Mehmet Ali Yılmaz, who called him a "discoloured cannibal" and also criticised him by saying "We bought him as a goal machine, but he turned out to be a washing machine
Washing machine
A washing machine is a machine designed to wash laundry, such as clothing, towels and sheets...
". He was very popular during his time at the club with the fans. To show solidarity with him when he asked to leave following this incident, the two club captains, Ogün Temizkanoğlu
Ogün Temizkanoglu
Ogün Temizkanoğlu is a Turkish former international footballer. He played mostly for Trabzonspor and Fenerbahçe as a central defender. He also played for Konyaspor and Akçaabat Sebatspor...
and Abdullah Ercan
Abdullah Ercan
Abdullah Ercan is a retired Turkish international footballer. He currently manages Gaziantepspor and the Turkey U-17 team.-Career:...
, were with him during his press conference in which he stated his reasons for leaving.
Everton, who were battling against relegation from the Premier League, signed Campbell on loan in March 1999. His impact on the side was immediate as he scored 9 goals in 8 games, making him Everton's top goalscorer that season and saving them from the drop. His 6 goals in his first 3 games earned him the April player of the month award, the first on-loan player ever to win it.
Campbell's move to Everton was made permanent in the summer of 1999 for a fee of £3million. In the first half of the 1999-2000 season
1999-2000 in English football
-Premier League:Manchester United were crowned FA Premier League champions with an 18-point margin over runners-up Arsenal and with just 3 league defeats all season. This was despite their failure to retain the European Cup and withdrawal from the FA Cup in order to compete in the FIFA Club World...
, he scored Everton's winning goal in the Merseyside derby
Merseyside derby
The Merseyside derby is the name given to any football match contested between Everton and Liverpool football clubs, the two most successful clubs from the city of Liverpool in England...
at Anfield
Anfield
Anfield is an association football stadium in the district of Anfield, Liverpool, England, with a seating capacity of 45,522. It has been the home of Liverpool F.C. since their formation in 1892 and was originally the home of Everton F.C. from 1884 to 1892, before they moved to Goodison Park...
against Liverpool
Liverpool F.C.
Liverpool Football Club is an English Premier League football club based in Liverpool, Merseyside. Liverpool has won eighteen League titles, second most in English football, seven FA Cups and a record seven League Cups...
.
He was Everton's leading goalscorer for both of the following two seasons, scoring 12 and 9 goals respectively, although Everton remained disappointing in the Premier League as they finished in the bottom half of the table both times during a run of bottom-half finishes which lasted from 1997 to 2002. After scoring only 4 goals during the 2001-02
2001-02 in English football
The 2001-02 season was the 122nd season of competitive football in England.-Arsenal cruise to title glory:In what had earlier been one of the most closely fought Premiership title races for years, Arsenal won the championship by seven points. Their crown was won in the penultimate game of the...
campaign, he was once again the club's top goalscorer the following year when he scored 10 times. This would prove to be Campbell's final season as first-choice for Everton as he struggled to battle both injuries and the emergence of a number of strikers, in particular Wayne Rooney
Wayne Rooney
Wayne Mark Rooney is an English footballer who plays as a striker for Premier League club Manchester United and the England national team...
. Campbell left in January 2005 on a free transfer to West Bromwich Albion
West Bromwich Albion F.C.
West Bromwich Albion Football Club, also known as West Brom, The Baggies, The Throstles, Albion or WBA, are an English Premier League association football club based in West Bromwich in the West Midlands...
, who were bottom of the Premiership. He was appointed team captain shortly after his arrival and successfully led the club to Premiership survival (this was the first time that a club which had been bottom of the league on Christmas Day had survived relegation).
However, in May 2006, after WBA's relegation to the Championship
Football League Championship
The Football League Championship is the highest division of The Football League and second-highest division overall in the English football league system after the Premier League...
, Campbell was released by the club. He signed for Cardiff City
Cardiff City F.C.
Cardiff City Football Club are a Welsh professional football club based in Cardiff, Wales. The club competes in the English football pyramid and is currently playing in the Football League Championship. Cardiff City is the best supported football club in Wales, averaging approximately 22,500 for...
on a free transfer on 2 August 2006. He scored his first and only goal for the first team in an FAW Premier Cup
FAW Premier Cup
The FAW Premier Cup is a defunct Welsh football cup competition, organised annually by the Football Association of Wales from 1997 to 2008...
quarter-final match away at Carmarthen Town
Carmarthen Town F.C.
Carmarthen Town Association Football Club is a Welsh semi-professional football club based in Carmarthen, Carmarthenshire, who play in the Welsh Premier League...
on February 13, 2007, and was released by the club in May 2007, subsequently retiring from the game to pursue business interests. His final competitive appearance came against former club West Brom on 20 February 2007.
Campbell earned 4 caps for the England U-21s
England national under-21 football team
England's national Under-21 football team, also known as England Under-21s or England U21, is considered to be the feeder team for the England national football team....
and 1 for England B
England B national football team
England B is a secondary football team run occasionally as support for the England national football team. At times they have played other nations' full teams; they have also played matches against 'B' teams from other football associations...
. He has the distinction of being the English player who has scored the most goals in the Premier League without earning an England cap.
Business interests
He ran his own record label, '2 Wikid', with rapper Mark MorrisonMark Morrison
Mark Morrison is a British R&B singer. He was the most successful UK R&B singer of the mid-90s and the first black male solo artist to reach number one in the 90s. His single "Return of the Mack" became a #1 or Top 10 hit in several European countries in 1996...
the label's first signing. But in December 2004, with the artist still signed to 2 Wikid, Campbell was forced to obtain a court injunction against rival label Jet Star
Jet Star
Jet Star was a United Kingdom record distribution company that grew out of Pama Records in 1978. It was one of the largest distributors of reggae music, the company themselves claiming the title "the world's largest reggae distributors".-History:Jet Star was formed in 1978 by the Palmer Brothers,...
, in order to prevent it from releasing Morrison's album Innocent Man
Innocent Man
Innocent Man is the third album released by British R&B musician Mark Morrison, and released in the UK as a limited edition DVD release. It is the second full-length album release, and follow up to "Return Of The Mack" in 1996. In 1997 Mark Morrison released an E.P. entitled "Only God Can Judge Me"...
. The injunction was lifted shortly afterwards, and the album was eventually released sometime later.
Campbell was featured on the Sky Sports
Sky Sports
Sky Sports is the brand name for a group of sports-oriented television channels operated by the UK and Ireland's main satellite pay-TV company, British Sky Broadcasting. Sky Sports is the dominant subscription television sports brand in the United Kingdom and Ireland...
series "Where are They Now?" in 2008, when he was the co-owner of a security company "T1 Protection", specialising in supplying bodyguards to celebrities and other wealthy customers whilst traveling abroad. He also commentated with Asia
Asia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...
-based TEN Sports
TEN Sports
TEN SPORTS is a sports channel, widely broadcast in Asia. Its key programming includes Cricket, Football and sports-entertainment shows viz. WWE. Ten Sports was launched on April 1, 2002, and became the world's premier sports channel for South Asians, reaching over 55 million homes across the Arab...
for their Premier League and Champions League
UEFA Champions League
The UEFA Champions League, known simply the Champions League and originally known as the European Champion Clubs' Cup or European Cup, is an annual international club football competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations since 1955 for the top football clubs in Europe. It...
coverage.