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Stephen Michael Kelly (born 6 September 1983) is an Irish professional footballer who plays at full back (usually right full back) for Fulham. He is a full international for the Republic of Ireland.

[edit] Club career

[edit] Tottenham Hotspur

Kelly was born in Finglas, Dublin and joined Tottenham Hotspur through their youth programme. He was something of an understudy to Stephen Carr (who was subsequently transferred to Newcastle United) and then to Paul Stalteri. He made his Spurs first team debut in 2003 and then went on to make nearly forty Premiership appearances, scoring two league goals against Birmingham City^[1] and Aston Villa.^[2]

[edit] Birmingham City

Birmingham City were believed to be winning the race to sign the defender in January 2006 only for Tottenham to pull the plug on the deal because they had an injury crisis in defence. Kelly did join Birmingham, however, on 28 June 2006 for an initial fee of £750,000 although it could rise to £1.25 million depending on his success with Birmingham City.^[3]

Stephen Kelly was the only outfield player in the 2007–08 Premier League season to have played every minute of every game for his club.^[4]

[edit] Stoke City

On 4 February 2009, Kelly joined Stoke City on loan from Birmingham City until the end of the 2008–09 season. Stoke City had to wait for 36 hours after the January transfer window shut for confirmation of the deal.^[5] Kelly made his Stoke debut in their next game, a 2–0 defeat to Sunderland,^[6] but picked up a hamstring injury while on international duty which would keep him out of Stoke's next fixture.^[7]

[edit] Fulham

On 16 June 2009, Kelly signed a three-year contract with Fulham, making him the club's first signing of the 2009 summer window. Kelly said he was delighted to join the Cottagers and was looking forward to representing the club in both the Premier League and Europa League.^[8]

[edit] International career

Kelly has won Irish caps at junior levels and is now a member in the Irish full team squad making his debut versus Chile. He represented the Republic of Ireland Under-20 team at the 2003 FIFA World Youth Championship.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Stephen Kelly career stats at Soccerbase