Gary Lineker

Gary Lineker

Personal information
Full name	Gary Winston Lineker
Height	1.77 m (5 ft 9+1⁄2 in)
Position(s)	Striker

Gary Winston Lineker, OBE (born 30 November 1960 in Leicester) is a former English international football striker who scored ten goals in two World Cups for the England national team and is currently a sports broadcaster for the BBC.

Since retiring from playing in 1994, Lineker has featured in several television commercials for Walkers Crisps.

It was his sense of positioning and tap-ins that made him one of England's most prolific strikers of all-time, although this style of play sometimes provoked accusations that he was a "goal hanger" capitalising on the effort of others. However, Lineker was an intelligent player with an understanding of the game and dedication to improvement. During his professional career, he was never cautioned or sent off by the referee. He studied the Spanish and Japanese languages, which allowed him to adjust better than most of his compatriots when playing for foreign clubs, and also to make a smooth transition into his role as a pundit and sports broadcaster.

Early life

He attended the City of Leicester School on Downing Drive in Evington and gained O levels and A levels. He broke into Leicester's first-team squad in 1978.

Club career

He began his career at his hometown club of Leicester City in 1976. Lineker began scoring prolifically in the early 1980s, finishing twice amongst the top flight's leading scorers and winning his first England call up. He helped Leicester win promotion to the top flight in 1983 and was the First Division's joint top goalscorer in 1984-85 (tied on 24 goals with Kerry Dixon).

He was then sold to Everton for £800,000 and scored 40 goals in 52 games, and once again was the First Division's leading goalscorer, this time with 30 goals. He helped Everton finish second in the league and reach the FA Cup final for the third year in a row. He gave them an early lead over Liverpool, who then turned the tables and beat Everton 3-1.

Barcelona signed him for £2,200,000 just after the 1986 World Cup in Mexico. His Golden Shoe-winning performance at the finals led to much anticipation of success at the Nou Camp, and he didn't disappoint, scoring 21 goals in 41 games during his first season, including a hat-trick in a 3-2 win over arch rivals Real Madrid.". Barcelona went on to win the Copa del Rey in 1988 and the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup in 1989. However, Barcelona coach Johan Cruijff decided to play Lineker on the right of the midfield and he eventually lost his first team place.

Lineker was wanted by Alex Ferguson of Manchester United to partner his ex-Barcelona team-mate Mark Hughes in attack, but Lineker rejected the Manchester club and returned to England at Tottenham Hotspur for £1,200,000 to play three seasons, scoring 67 goals in 105 games and winning the FA Cup. He finished as top scorer in Division One in the 1989–90 season, scoring 24 goals. He was in the Tottenham side which won the FA Cup in 1991 and was pipped at the post for the position as the top division's leading goalscorer in 1991-92 with 28 goals from 35 games in a 42 games season by Ian Wright who finished with 29, but Tottenham's dismal defensive record meant that they finished the final pre-Premier League season in 15th place.

He ended his career with an injury-plagued spell in Japan's J. League with Nagoya Grampus Eight where he made 23 appearances over two seasons scoring nine times before announcing his retirement in the autumn of 1994. Lineker was PFA Players' Player of the Year in 1986 and placed third in voting for the inaugural FIFA World Player of the Year in 1991. Despite his long career, Lineker was never cautioned by a referee for foul play (never once receiving a yellow card or a red card).

National team career

He first played for the England national team against Scotland in 1984. He played five games in the 1986 World Cup, and was top scorer of the tournament with six goals, winning the Golden Boot, making him the first and to this day only English player to have done so. He played most of the tournament wearing a lightweight cast on his forearm. In 1988 Lineker played in the European Football Championship, but failed to score as England lost all three Group games. It was later established that he had been suffering from hepatitis .

In the 1990 World Cup, he scored four goals to help England reach the semi-finals. He scored an equaliser against West Germany after Andreas Brehme sent England 1-0 down, but the West Germans triumphed in the penalty shoot-out and went on to win the trophy.

He retired from international football with 80 caps and 48 goals, one fewer goal than Bobby Charlton's England record (although Charlton took 26 more caps to score his one extra goal). In what proved to be his last England match, against Sweden at Euro 92, he was controversially substituted by England coach Graham Taylor, in favour of Arsenal striker Alan Smith, ultimately denying Lineker the chance to equal the total. He had earlier missed a penalty that would have brought him level, in a pre-tournament friendly against Brazil. He was visibily upset at the decision, not looking at Taylor as he took the bench.

He scored 4 goals in an England match on two occasions.

Honours

• Copa del Rey: 1988
• UEFA Cup Winners' Cup: 1989
• FA Cup: 1991; Runner-up 1986
• First Division (now Premier League): Runner-up 1986
• English league top scorer: 1985, 1986, 1990

International Goals

Scores and results list England's goal tally first.

#	Date	Venue	Opponent	Result	Competition	Scored
1	1985-03-26	Wembley Stadium (1923)	Republic of Ireland	2-1	Friendly match	1
2	1985-06-16	Memorial Coliseum, Los Angeles	United States	5-0	Friendly match	2
3	1985-10-16	Wembley Stadium (1923)	Turkey	5-0	1986 FIFA World Cup qualification	3
4	1986-06-11	Estadio Tecnológico, Monterrey	Poland	3-0	1986 FIFA World Cup	3
5	1986-06-18	Estadio Azteca, Mexico City	Paraguay	3-0	1986 FIFA World Cup	2
6	1986-06-22	Estadio Azteca, Mexico City	Argentina	1-2	1986 FIFA World Cup	1
7	1986-10-15	Wembley Stadium (1923)	Northern Ireland	3-0	1988 UEFA European Football Championship qualifying	2
8	1987-02-18	Santiago Bernabéu, Madrid	Spain	4-2	Friendly match	4
9	1987-05-19	Wembley Stadium (1923)	Brazil	1-1	Friendly match (Rous Cup)	1
10	1987-09-09	Rheinstadion, Düsseldorf	West Germany	1-3	Friendly match	1
11	1987-05-10	Wembley Stadium (1923)	Turkey	8-0	1988 UEFA European Football Championship qualifying	3
12	1988-05-25	Wembley Stadium (1923)	Colombia	1-1	Friendly match (Rous Cup)	1
13	1988-11-22	Wembley Stadium (1923)	Netherlands	2-2	Friendly match	1
14	1988-05-28	Stade Olympique de la Pontaise, Lausanne	Switzerland	1-0	Friendly match	1
15	1989-04-26	Wembley Stadium (1923)	Albania	5-0	1990 FIFA World Cup qualification	1
16	1989-06-03	Wembley Stadium (1923)	Poland	3-0	1990 FIFA World Cup qualification	1
17	1989-06-07	Parken Stadium, Copenhagen	Denmark	1-1	Friendly match	1
18	1990-03-26	Wembley Stadium (1923)	Brazil	1-0	Friendly match	1
19	1990-05-15	Wembley Stadium (1923)	Denmark	1-0	Friendly match	1
20	1990-06-11	Stadio Sant'Elia, Cagliari	Republic of Ireland	1-1	1990 FIFA World Cup	1
21	1990-07-01	Stadio San Paolo, Naples	Cameroon	3-2	1990 FIFA World Cup	2
22	1990-07-04	Stadio delle Alpi, Turin	West Germany	1-1 (3-4 on pens)	1990 FIFA World Cup	1
23	1990-04-02	Wembley Stadium (1923)	Hungary	1-0	Friendly match	1
24	1990-10-17	Wembley Stadium (1923)	Poland	2-0	1992 UEFA European Football Championship qualifying	1
25	1991-02-06	Wembley Stadium (1923)	Cameroon	2-0	Friendly match	2
26	1991-07-26	Wembley Stadium (1923)	Argentina	2-2	Friendly match (England Challenge Cup)	1
27	1991-06-03	Mt Smart Stadium, Auckland	New Zealand	1-0	Friendly match	1
28	1991-06-12	Stadium Merdeka, Kuala Lumpur	Malaysia	4-2	Friendly match	4
39	1991-11-13	Stadion Miejski, Poznań	Poland	1-1	1992 UEFA European Football Championship qualifying	1
30	1992-02-19	Wembley Stadium (1923)	France	2-0	Friendly match	1
31	1992-04-29	Luzhniki Stadium, Moscow	CIS	2-2	Friendly match	1

Statistics

Template:Football player statistics 1 Template:Football player statistics 2 |- |1978-79||rowspan="7"|Leicester City||rowspan="2"|Second Division||7||1||colspan="2"|-||colspan="2"|-||colspan="2"|-||7||1 |- |1979-80||19||3||1||0||colspan="2"|-||colspan="2"|-||20||3 |- |1980-81||First Division||9||2||1||1||colspan="2"|-||colspan="2"|-||10||3 |- |1981-82||rowspan="2"|Second Division||39||17||5||2||3||0||colspan="2"|-||47||19 |- |1982-83||40||26||1||0||2||0||colspan="2"|-||43||26 |- |1983-84||rowspan="2"|First Division||39||22||1||0||1||0||colspan="2"|-||41||22 |- |1984-85||41||24||4||3||3||2||colspan="2"|-||48||29 |- |1985-86||Everton||First Division||41||30||6||5||5||3||colspan="2"|-||52||38 Template:Football player statistics 2 |- |1986-87||rowspan="3"|Barcelona||rowspan="3"|La Liga||41||21||1||1||colspan="2"|-||8||0||50||22 |- |1987-88||36||16||5||2||colspan="2"|-||9||2||50||20 |- |1988-89||26||6||4||1||colspan="2"|-||8||4||38||11 Template:Football player statistics 2 |- |1989-90||rowspan="3"|Tottenham Hotspur||rowspan="3"|First Division||38||24||1||0||6||2||colspan="2"|-||45||26 |- |1990-91||32||15||6||3||5||1||colspan="2"|-||43||19 |- |1991-92||35||28||2||0||5||5||8||2||50||35 Template:Football player statistics 2 |- |1993||rowspan="2"|Nagoya Grampus Eight||rowspan="2"|J. League||6||3||0||0||0||0||colspan="2"|-||6||3 |- |1994||17||6||0||0||0||0||colspan="2"|-||17||6 Template:Football player statistics 3340||193||28||14||30||13||8||2||406||222 Template:Football player statistics 4103||43||10||4||colspan="2"|-||25||6||138||53 Template:Football player statistics 423||9||0||0||0||0||colspan="2"|-||17||6 Template:Football player statistics 5466||245||38||18||30||13||33||8||561||281 |}

Post-playing career

Lineker is a freeman of the City of Leicester (which entitles him to graze his sheep - should he have any - on Town Hall Square) and he is often referred to as "Leicester's favourite son". As a youngster, he famously worked on his family's stall in Leicester Market. Lineker still helped out on the stall at the height of his playing career during the late 1980s and early 1990s, though usually only in the closed season. His links with cricket were renewed when he was invited to become Honorary President of Kent-based wandering cricket club, Paraguayan Elbows CC. The club, which was founded in 1986, was named in his honour after an incident in that summer's World Cup match between England and Paraguay.

In 2003 Lineker was inducted into the English Football Hall of Fame. He once remarked "Football is a simple game; 22 men chase a ball for 90 minutes and at the end, the Germans win."

In October 2003, Lineker announced a £5 million rescue plan for cash-strapped club Leicester City, describing his involvement as charity rather than an ego trip. He said that he would invest a six-figure sum and other members of his consortium would invest a similar amount. Lineker met the fans' group to persuade them to try and raise money to rescue his former club. Another six-figure sum donor was Emile Heskey, who had not only followed in Lineker's footsteps by going to the same school as him, but also went on to play for Leicester City and England. Lineker is now honorary vice-president of Leicester City, along with Gordon Banks and Peter Shilton, and the north stand of the club's Walkers Stadium is named in his honour.

In 2005, Lineker was sued for defamation by Australian footballer Harry Kewell over comments Lineker had made writing in his column in the Sunday Telegraph about Kewell's transfer from Leeds United to Liverpool. However the jury was unable to reach a verdict. It transpired in the case that the article had actually been ghost-written by a journalist at the Sunday Telegraph following a telephone interview with Lineker.

Personal life

Lineker divorced his wife Michelle, following 20 years of marriage in August 2006. They announced their split in April 2006. They have four sons, George, Harry, Tobias, and Angus. His oldest son George survived a rare form of leukaemia as a baby in the early 1990s; Lineker has since appeared in adverts encouraging people to give blood as a result. The split is described as "amicable".

He is currently the partner of Danielle Bux (born c. 1979), a mother of one[1].

In April 2006, his brother Wayne was jailed for two and a half years for a tax fraud (money laundering) of £220,000[2].

Broadcasting

Following retirement from professional football, he developed a career in the media, initially on BBC Radio 5 Live and as a football pundit before replacing Des Lynam as the BBC's anchorman for football coverage, including their flagship football television programme Match of the Day, and as a team captain on the acerbic sports game show, They Think It's All Over from 1995 to 2003, where he was heavily (though affectionately) ridiculed for being a "goal hanger", described as "lethal from twelve inches (305 mm) " -- a parody of Lineker's short-range scoring prowess. Following the departure of Steve Rider from the BBC, Lineker, who is a keen recreational golfer with a handicap of four, became the new presenter for the BBC's golf coverage. However his debut in this role at the The Masters was much derided - one commentator saying that "...keeping him in the anchor's chair would be a major own goal." However he continued to front the BBC's coverage of the Masters and The Open, where he put his language skills to good use by giving an impromptu interview in Spanish with Argentinian Andrés Romero.[3]

He presented a six-part TV Series for the BBC in 1998 (directed by Lloyd Stanton) called "Golden Boots" [4], with other football celebrities. It was an extensive history of the World Cup focusing on the 'Golden Boots' (top scorers).

In 2001, Lineker was approached by game makers Codemasters to front the LMA Manager series on PlayStation. Lineker would pair up with Alan Hansen, fellow MOTD pundit to voice the post match comments on the game, with Barry Davies voicing the commentary. Since then the game has sold millions of copies and in LMA 2006, Lineker voices news items and the cup draws on the game. In 2004 he was also chosen to front the Codemasters England International Football game, with him voicing the team selection and the pre- and post-match menus.

In 2002, Lineker took on his first acting role, barring roles playing himself in films such as Bend It Like Beckham or in the adapted for television stage play An Evening with Gary Lineker, as the voice of Underground Ernie on the BBC's children's channel, CBeebies. Both Gary and Michelle Lineker make a 'blink-and-you'll-miss-them' appearance as diners leaving a restaurant in the 1993 Eric Idle film Splitting Heirs.

Walkers Advertisments

His popularity has enabled him to appear in a light-hearted series of commercials for Walkers, playing a comical role as an arch-villain which sends up his reputation as a nice guy. He has been fronting these adverts since 1995, making this one of the longest running advertising campaigns ever. Walkers, a Leicester-based British producer of snack foods, temporarily named their salt & vinegar crisps after Lineker in the late 1990s - they were labelled 'Salt-n-Lineker.'

Charitable activity

Gary Lineker will face questioning by a former England rugby player as part of Cancer Research UK's political Turn the Tables initiative. The event will take place on April 24th at London's Cafe Royal and will allow sporting heroes to question sports journalists. Cancer Research UK hopes to raise over £40,000 for the charity's life-saving work.

References

Gary Lineker: Strikingly Different, Colin Malam, Stanley Paul Publications, London, 1993 ISBN 0-09-175424-0

External links

• Gary Lineker at Soccerbase
• English Football Hall of Fame Profile
• Gary Lineker's Football Career Home and Abroad
• Gary Lineker at IMDb

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