Keith Gillespie

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Personal information
Keith Gillespie
Full name	Keith Robert Gillespie
Date of birth	February 18, 1975 (age 32)
Place of birth	Larne, Northern Ireland
Nickname	Keef
Playing position	Midfielder
Club information
Current club	Sheffield United
Youth clubs
	Manchester United
Senior clubs¹
Years	Club	App (Gls)*
1993–1995 1993 1995–1998 1998–2003 2000–2001 2003–2005 2005–	Manchester United → Wigan Athletic (loan) Newcastle United Blackburn Rovers → Wigan Athletic (loan) Leicester City Sheffield United	009 0(1) 008 0(4) 113 (11) 115 0(6) 005 0(0) 042 0(2) 052 0(2)
National team²
1994–	Northern Ireland	073 0(2)
¹ Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only and correct as of 14:24, 18 February 2007 (UTC). ² National team caps and goals correct as of 08/10/2006. * Appearances (Goals)

Keith Robert Gillespie (born February 18, 1975 in Larne, County Antrim) is a Northern Irish professional footballer, who plays midfield. He currently plays for Sheffield United of the English Premiership.

1 Playing career
2 International career
3 References
4 External links

[edit] Playing career

[edit] Early career

His first years were spent in Whitehead, County Antrim where he attended Whitehead Primary School. He later moved to Bangor, County Down where he attended Rathmore Primary School and Bangor Grammar School.

[edit] Manchester United

Gillespie began his career at Manchester United where he struggled to establish himself as a first-team player. However, he was a member of the famous Manchester United Youth Cup winning side of 1992, a team that included Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes, David Beckham, Gary Neville and Robbie Savage.

After a loan spell at Wigan Athletic, he moved to Newcastle United as part of the £7 million deal which took Andy Cole to Old Trafford.

[edit] Newcastle United

Gillespie stayed at Newcastle for five seasons and during this time he played 143 games, including 15 European ties primarily in the Champions League and UEFA Cup, and scored 13 goals, In both the 1995–96 and 1996–97 seasons he helped Newcastle to finish second in the Premiership (runners up to Gillespie's former club, Manchester United, on both occasions). In his final full season at Newcastle, the 1997–98 season, Gillespie helped Newcastle to reach the FA Cup final. However, he was not in the squad for the final and Newcastle lost to Arsenal The following season saw Gillespie depart St James' Park, moving to Blackburn Rovers for £2.3 million.

[edit] Blackburn Rovers and Leicester City

Five seasons at Ewood Park brought another 138 games and 6 goals as well as another loan spell at Wigan Athletic, bringing his total appearances for Athletic to 15 from which he scored 4 goals. He then moved to Leicester City on a free transfer playing 48 games and scoring 2 goals in two seasons.

[edit] Sheffield United

Gillespie signed for his current club, Sheffield United, on 5 August 2005, signing a one-year contract. This was then extended to June 2007 a month later. In his first season at the club, Gillespie played a role in Sheffield United's successful promotion campaign to the Premiership.

On January 20, 2007, during a Premiership match against Reading at the Madejski Stadium, Gillespie was sent off for violent conduct (elbowing Reading's Stephen Hunt) twelve seconds after coming on as a substitute. As he made his way off the pitch, Gillespie pushed Hunt in the face.^[1] He thereby achieved the dubious honour of becoming the fastest sending-off of a substitute in English football. He was sent off before the ball had come back into play, and so technically sent off being on the pitch for zero seconds of play.^[2]

The day after this incident, he stunned Sheffield United when he handed in a transfer request to the chief executive Terry Robinson.^[3]

[edit] International career

Gillespie is a member of the current Northern Ireland team having been named in the 20-man squad for their Group F Euro 2008 qualifying games against Denmark in the Parken Stadium and Latvia at Windsor Park.

He is currently in joint-4th place in the list of appearances for Northern Ireland with 73 caps, alongside Jimmy Nicholl. He played an important role in his country's 3-2 qualifying win against Spain at Windsor Park on 6 September, 2006. His most recent cap was against Latvia in a 1-0 home victory at the Windsor Park in Belfast.