Robbie Fowler, born 9 April 1975 in Liverpool, is an English
football player. He is a striker. He has played for England
internationally, making 26 appearances and scoring 7 goals, but
his England career during Sven-Göran Eriksson's tenure as
manager appears to have ended. Eriksson has tended to favour the
combination of Michael Owen and Wayne Rooney as the first-choice
pairing for England.
Fowler joined Premier Division club Liverpool F.C. as a trainee
in 1992 and made his Liverpool debut in 1993. A part of the
League Cup-winning Liverpool side in 1995, Fowler won the PFA
Young Player of the Year in 1995 and 1996. Throughout the mid-
and late-1990's, Fowler was considered by many the most natural
finisher playing in England. In one game in 1994, he scored a
hat-trick (3 goals) in 4 minutes and 32 seconds against Arsenal,
still a Premiership record to this day.
Fowler won the League Cup, FA Cup and UEFA Cup with the Reds in
2001. In October 2001, he scored his first league hat-trick for
three years, helping Liverpool beat Leicester City F.C. 4-1. He
was a hero to Liverpool fans, but unfortunately a combination of
off-field controversy and training ground arguments with then-Assistant
Manager Phil Thompson, led to his departure. It is perhaps more
true to say that the then Liverpool F.C. manager, Gérard
Houllier, was all along persistently seeking an excuse to
offload Fowler, whilst publicly maintaining a pretence of
wishing to retain the striker's services. Various reasons can be
said to account for this idea's validity amongst many Liverpool
F.C. fans, but one particularly obvious one was the need of the
then manager to not lose boardroom support. Fowler's appearences
for Liverpool were limited by the presence of England's first
choice strikers, Emile Heskey (who cost Liverpool 11 million
pounds in his transfer from Leicester F.C.) and Michael Owen.
Just one month after his hat-trick at Leicester, Fowler
transferred to another Premier League club Leeds United F.C. for
11 million pounds. Dogged by injury and weight problems,
although still contributing a respectable number of goals and
assists for Leeds, Fowler transferred to Manchester City F.C. on
16 January 2003, sparking a feud between the Chairman Bernstein,
and top shareholders Wardle and Makin.
Despite Fowler's relatively poor start to his Manchester City
career, of late (December 2004-present), he has started to
become a key member of the starting eleven, and on 28 February
2005, he scored his 150th Premiership goal in the 3-2 win over
Norwich City.
Fowler, as of March 2005, is the third highest scorer in
Premiership history. |
