Source: Team_Talk
Another new challenge for Bell
TEAMtalk feels Cardiff boss Dave Jones has pulled off a coup by landing Craig Bellamy on a season-long loan - but needs to keep him on track.[LNB] So Craig Bellamy is on the move again - home to Cardiff this time - and no one in football can be surprised.[LNB]Bellamy is not for staying. Not for long, anyway, in a 14-year professional career in which he has now stopped off at nine clubs and during which he has never been far from controversy.[LNB]Many have tried to tame the 31-year-old Welshman from Trowbridge in Cardiff, who Sir Bobby Robson once described as "a great player wrapped round an unusual and volatile character". Most have failed.[LNB]Which is why any appreciation of his career inevitably is dominated by his penchant for a fracas rather than his undeniable talent as a footballer.[LNB]Such as his public fall-out with manager Graeme Souness while at Newcastle in 2005 which came to a head at a match against Arsenal.[LNB]Souness said Bellamy had been left out due to a hamstring problem, but contradicted himself in a post-match interview, claiming Bellamy was benched for being unwilling to play as a right-sided midfielder.[LNB]Bellamy accused Souness of lying, saying he was prepared to play in any position for his club, although he later admitted he had threatened to fake injury.[LNB]Souness, an iron disciplinarian, responded by claiming Bellamy would never play again for Newcastle while he was manager.[LNB]It was a spat typical of the conflict which has been an integral part of Bellamy's career.[LNB]Others such as Alan Shearer reportedly said he would "knock his block off" after claiming to have received abusive text messages apparently from Bellamy's phone after Newcastle had lost an FA Cup semi-final to Manchester United while he was on loan at Celtic.[LNB]There was also the incident in February 2007 when it was alleged Bellamy attacked Liverpool team-mate John Arne Riise with a golf club during a team training session in Portugal.[LNB]Both players were fined two weeks' wages and in the next match, away at Barcelona in the Champions League, Bellamy celebrated an equalising goal by emulating a golf stroke.[LNB]Mischievous or malicious? Bellamy has often trodden a fine line between the two. A complex character. A man prone to rash impulses and temper tantrums.[LNB]Yet that is not the whole story. Not when you learn that two years ago Bellamy, who is married with two sons, Alex and Cameron, and a daughter, Lexie, pumped £650,000 of his own money into building a football academy for disadvantaged children in Freetown, Sierra Leone. A rebel with a cause, you might say.[LNB]A mighty fine footballer too. A player whose pace, direct running and nose for a goal has persuaded so many to overlook his foibles.[LNB]Mark Hughes, another Welshman, perhaps drew the best out of him, in a brief time at Blackburn, half a season at Manchester City and then as the manager of Wales for whom Bellamy has earned 59 caps and scored 18 goals.[LNB]It was Hughes who took Bellamy to City and last season he was arguably City's most effective player, his two goals in a memorable Manchester derby which City lost 4-3 among the highlights.[LNB]Even then it was marred in controversy as Bellamy was caught by television cameras slapping the face of a fan who had invaded the pitch and was being escorted away by stewards. A Football Association warning as to his future conduct followed.[LNB]If Hughes had stayed at Eastlands then things might have been different. As it was the arrival of Roberto Mancini as manager saw Bellamy immediately dropped to the bench, though he did score two goals in City's 4-2 win against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge.[LNB]Since then relations appear to have soured with manager and player reportedly having barely spoken to each other for six months.[LNB]So Bellamy moves on yet again. To his ninth club. With 'The fire in the Bellamy', as one headline once aptly summed him up, still raging.
