Robert Earnshaw
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Robert Earnshaw
Personal information
Full name	Robert Earnshaw
Date of birth	6 April 1981 (1981-04-06) (age 28)
Place of birth	Mufulira, Zambia
Height	1.73 m (5 ft 8 in)
Playing position	Striker
Club information
Current club	Nottingham Forest
Number	10
Senior career1
Years	Club	App (Gls)*
1997–2004 2000 2004–2006 2006–2007 2007–2008 2008–	Cardiff City → Greenock Morton (loan) West Bromwich Albion Norwich City Derby County Nottingham Forest	178 (86) 003 0(2) 043 (12) 045 (27) 022 0(1) 032 (12)
National team2
1998–2001 2002–	Wales U21 Wales	010 0(1) 045 (14)
1 Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only and correct as of 15:49 28 January 2009 (UTC). 2 National team caps and goals correct as of 09:59, 7 June 2009 (UTC). * Appearances (Goals)

Robert Earnshaw (born 6 April 1981) is a Zambian-born Welsh international football player. He is a striker presently playing for Nottingham Forest.

Early life

Earnshaw, nicknamed "Earnie", was born on the outskirts of the north central Zambian mining town of Mufulira on 6 April 1981. When he was five, his family moved to Malawi where David Earnshaw took charge of another coal mine and his youngest son began school. Again, the family's stay was to be a short one. In September 1990, following the death of her husband, Rita moved the Earnshaw family to Bedwas, a small Welsh town to the north of Cardiff, where they lived initially with her sister. Earnshaw still has a house there.

"It was the first time I had been away from Africa." he recalls. "It was just completely different, from one to extreme to another. It was much colder as well, just every little thing was different, everyone spoke English over here and although I could speak a little bit I had to learn. But when you're a kid you just get on with it."

It was in Wales that he began playing football, kicking a ball around with friends between and after classes at Cardinal Newman's, the school he moved on to after a spell at St. Helen's Primary. Cardinal Newman's was a rugby union-playing school so Earnshaw's first organised football match came at the age of 12 with local youth side Llanbradach. "We didn't win anything, we weren't the best," he says. "I only played one year and then I moved to GE Wales, which was a better team and we won a few local titles. I scored a lot of goals, 80 one season, 60 another when I was 14, 15, 16."

Playing career

Cardiff City

Those goals grabbed the attention of then Cardiff City youth team coach Gavin Tait, earning the youngster an invite to training, and, on 1 August 1997, a one-year YTS contract at Ninian Park. He came through the club's youth development programme and became a full-time professional in August 1998, despite the attentions of his heroes Manchester United. Earnshaw made his mark immediately with a superb equaliser at Hartlepool United on the opening day of the season. Earnshaw was loaned to Greenock Morton by Frank Burrows to gain experience and toughen up. He also at one stage had a trial at Middlesbrough under Bryan Robson. The experience gave Earnshaw the motivation to succeed and on his return he soon became one of the Bluebird fans' biggest heroes. He had already been capped by Wales at youth and under-21 level, but his exploits in Cardiff City's promotion campaigns attracted the attention of national coach Mark Hughes. Earnshaw duly exploded onto the international scene, scoring the winning goal on his debut for Wales against Germany at the Millennium Stadium in May 2002; he was also named man of the match.¹ A few months later Earnshaw was named Young Welsh Footballer of the Year, and was named in the PFA Division Two Team of the Year for 2002–03² after a prolific season saw him score 35 goals in all competitions, with 31 scored in the league meaning he broke the 56-year old club record of Stan Richards.³ Earnshaw became a key member of the Wales squad during the Euro 2004 qualifying campaign. He staked his claim for a regular slot in the starting line-up with a hat-trick in the 4–0 friendly win over Scotland in February 2004. At the end of 2003–04, Earnshaw was named in the First Division team of the year.⁴ Several top clubs including Manchester United, Liverpool and Celtic sent their scouts to look at Earnshaw as his reputation spread. He scored 87 goals in his 175 appearances for Cardiff City.

West Bromwich Albion

Earnshaw in action for Wales

In 2004 Earnshaw was transferred from Cardiff to West Bromwich Albion for £3 million, a fee that could have reached a maximum of £3.62 million with performance-related add-ons.⁵ His agent Mel Eves was fined 30,000 Swiss francs (£12,250) by Fifa in July 2007 over his role in the transfer. Eves was found guilty of acting for both his client (Earnshaw) and the buying club (Albion) in the deal.⁶ Earnshaw made his Albion début in a 3–0 defeat at Liverpool on 11 September 2004, coming on as a second-half substitute but making little impact.⁷ It took Earnshaw seven games to notch his first Albion goal, netting twice in the 2–2 draw at Southampton on November 6, 2004.⁸ His Premier League hat-trick against Charlton Athletic on 19 March 2005 made him the first player to have scored a hat-trick at all four levels of English professional league football, in the FA and League Cups and at full international level. Although key goals such as these helped the club retain their Premiership status, manager Bryan Robson preferred to use him from the bench as an impact player rather than as a starter. Nevertheless, Earnshaw finished as Albion's top goalscorer for that season with 14 goals, earning him the Ronnie Allen trophy.⁹ He remained in the squad for 2005–06, albeit that West Brom signed several additional forwards including Diomansy Kamara and Nathan Ellington and competition was even more fierce.

Norwich City

On transfer deadline day, 31 January 2006, Earnshaw signed for Norwich City for a fee of £2.75 million (rising to £3.5 million).¹⁰ He opened his Norwich goalscoring account with a brace, late on in Norwich's 3–0 home win against Brighton on 14 February 2006. Earnshaw scored six more goals in the remaining matches of the 2005–06 season. By January 2007, Earnshaw was top-scorer in the division with 17 goals, but suffered a severe groin injury in training, that looked to have put him out of action for the rest of the season.¹¹ However he returned to first team action in April 2007 to score his 18th and 19th goals of the season against Leicester City and Sheffield Wednesday respectively to cap off a truly remarkable recovery from the injury.

Derby County

Derby County broke their transfer record, previously held by the £3 million transfer of Seth Johnson from Crewe Alexandra, by signing Earnshaw from Norwich City for a fee of £3.5 million on 29 June 2007.¹² He made his debut for the Rams in a 2–2 draw against Portsmouth on 11 August 2007.¹³. Earnshaw struggled to make an impact at Derby and was in and out of the side at the start of the season before being dropped. His first goal for the club came in a in a 4–1 FA Cup defeat to Preston North End on 26 January 2008, by which time the man who signed him, Billy Davies, had left the club and been replaced by Paul Jewell.¹⁴ It wasn't until 28 April 2008 that he scored his first Premier League goal for the club, in the 6–2 home defeat to Arsenal.¹⁵ Earnshaw made just seven starts in his debut season at Derby, with a further 17 appearances as sub. He was left out of the squad for the final game of the season against Reading when it was revealed that Jewell had accepted a bid from two unspecified clubs¹⁶ later revealed to be Nottingham Forest and Sheffield United. ¹⁷.

Nottingham Forest

In May 2008, less than a year after signing for Derby, Earnshaw joined Nottingham Forest for £2.65m, signing a three year deal.¹⁸¹⁹ He made his competitive debut in a 0–0 draw with Reading on 10 August 2008,²⁰ scoring his first competitive goals for Forest in their League Cup first-round tie at home to Morecambe, getting two on 13 August 2008.²¹ Robert's first League goal for Forest came in their 3-2 victory over Watford in the Championship, at the City Ground on 23 August 2008.²²²³

Career statistics

²⁴

Honours

With Cardiff City

• Football League Division Two play-off winner: 1
  

2002-03

Trivia

• He is the only player to have scored hat-tricks in the Premiership, Divisions 1, 2 and 3, the FA Cup, the League Cup and in an international:

Premiership, West Brom vs Charlton, 19 March 2005
Division 1, Cardiff vs Gillingham, 19 September 2003
Division 2, Cardiff vs Q.P.R., 29 November 2002 and Tranmere March 14, 2003
Division 3, Cardiff vs Torquay United, 12 February 2000
FA Cup, Cardiff vs Bristol Rovers, 19 November 2000
League Cup, Cardiff vs Boston United, 11 September 2002, and Leyton Orient, August 12, 2003
International, Wales vs Scotland, 18 February 2004

• In a BBC Sport poll in 2004 he came second, with a vote of 31%, in a vote to find Cardiff's all time cult hero. He was runner-up to Robin Friday and finished ahead of John Toshack.²⁵

References

External links

• Robert Earnshaw career stats at Soccerbase
• Career information
• BBC SE Wales profile