Conor James Coventry (born 25 March 2000) is a professional

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby le ...

who plays as a

midfielder A midfielder is an outfield position in association football. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in that case known as defensive midfielders. As central midfielders often go across boundarie ...

for

Premier League The Premier League (legal name: The Football Association Premier League Limited) is the highest level of the men's English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Foo ...

club

West Ham United West Ham United Football Club is an English professional football club that plays its home matches in Stratford, East London. The club competes in the Premier League, the top tier of English football. The club plays at the London Stadium, hav ...

. He has also played on loan for Lincoln City,

Peterborough United Peterborough United Football Club is an English professional football club based in Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, England. The team compete in League One, the third tier of the English football league system. Peterborough have a long-standing ...

Milton Keynes Dons Milton Keynes Dons Football Club (), usually abbreviated to MK Dons, is a professional association football club based in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, England. The team competes in , the third tier of the English football league system. The ...

and

Rotherham United Rotherham United Football Club, nicknamed The Millers, is a professional football club based in Rotherham, South Yorkshire, England, which compete in the . The club's colours were initially yellow and black, but changed to red and white around 1 ...

. Born in England, he represents the Republic of Ireland at youth international level. Coventry is the Republic of Ireland's all-time record holder for the most appearances at U21 level with 28 caps.

Club career

West Ham United

Coventry joined the

youth academy In sporting terminology, a youth system (or youth academy) is a youth investment program within a particular team or league, which develops and nurtures young talent in farm teams, with the vision of using them in the first team in the future if t ...

at the age of 10. He scored his first goal for the under-23 team on his debut on 20 February 2017, in a 2–0 victory against

Fulham Fulham () is an area of the London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham in West London, England, southwest of Charing Cross. It lies on the north bank of the River Thames, bordering Hammersmith, Kensington and Chelsea. The area faces Wandsworth ...

. During the 2017–18 season, he played ten times in

Professional Development League The Professional Development League is a system of youth association football, football leagues that are managed, organised and controlled by the Premier League or by the Football League. It was introduced by the The Football Association, Footbal ...

and four times in

EFL Trophy The English Football League Trophy, known for sponsorship purposes as the Papa Johns Trophy after restaurant chain Papa John's Pizza, is an annual English association football knockout competition open to all clubs in EFL League One and EFL Le ...

and won the Academy Player of the Year award at the end of the season on 25 April 2018. On 25 May 2018, Coventry signed his first professional contract with the club. About it, he said "I’ve worked for this for a long time so yes, I'm really happy to sign the deal". On 26 September, he made his first team debut, coming on as a substitute for Pedro Obiang in an 8–0 victory against

Macclesfield Town Macclesfield Town Football Club was an English professional association football, football club based in Macclesfield, Cheshire, that was liquidation, wound-up after a High Court of Justice, High Court ruling on 16 September 2020. Initially kno ...

in the

EFL Cup The EFL Cup (referred to historically, and colloquially, as the League Cup), currently known as the Carabao Cup for sponsorship reasons, is an annual knockout competition and major trophy in men's domestic football in England. Organised by the ...

. In January 2020, Coventry signed a new contract with West Ham which would see him stay at the club until 2023. He signed on loan for

League One The English Football League One (often referred to as League One for short or Sky Bet League One for sponsorship purposes, and known as the Football League One from 2004 until 2016) is the second-highest division of the English Football Leag ...

club Lincoln City until the end of the 2019–20 season on 10 January 2020. Coventry signed a season-long loan deal with

Championship In sport, a championship is a competition in which the aim is to decide which individual or team is the champion. Championship systems Various forms of competition can be referred to by the term championship. Title match system In this system ...

team

on 31 August 2021. He made 12 appearances for Peterborough before returning to West Ham in January 2022. On 18 January 2022, Coventry joined League One club

on loan for the remainder of the 2021–22 season, playing his first game in the No. 14 shirt for the Dons on 22 January in a home loss versus

Doncaster Doncaster (, ) is a city in South Yorkshire, England. Named after the River Don, it is the administrative centre of the larger City of Doncaster. It is the second largest settlement in South Yorkshire after Sheffield. Doncaster is situated in ...

, where he was substituted in the 75th minute by

Hiram Boateng Hiram Kojo Kwarteng Boateng (born 8 January 1996) is an English professional footballer who plays as a midfielder for EFL League Two club Mansfield Town. Club career Crystal Palace Born in Wandsworth, Boateng joined the academy of Crystal Palac ...

. Whilst on loan, Coventry scored his first professional league goal on 5 April 2022 in a 2–1 home win over

Crewe Alexandra Crewe Alexandra Football Club is an English professional association football club based in the town of Crewe, Cheshire, that competes in League Two, the fourth tier of the English football league system. Nicknamed 'The Railwaymen' because of ...

. He went on to make 22 appearances for MK Dons as the club secured a third-placed play-off finish. On 7 August 2022, Coventry made his Premier League debut as a 92nd-minute substitute for Pablo Fornals in a 2–0 home defeat to

Manchester City Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The tw ...

. On 26 January 2023, Coventry joined Championship team

on loan until the end of the 2022–23 season.

International career

Born in England, Coventry was eligible for both the England and Republic of Ireland national teams through his mother. Opting for the Republic of Ireland, he played regularly for the country's U17 and U19 sides before making his debut for Stephen Kenny's U21 team during the

2019 Toulon Tournament The 2019 Toulon Tournament (officially french: 47ème Festival International "Espoirs" – Tournoi Maurice Revello) was the 47th edition of the Toulon Tournament. It was held in the department of Bouches-du-Rhône from 1 to 15 June 2019. England w ...

where the side finished in fourth place. Coventry was later named the team's captain and went on to feature regularly for the side. He was called up to the Republic of Ireland senior squad for the first time in March 2021, replacing the injured

Conor Hourihane Conor Geraroid Hourihane () (born 2 February 1991) is an Irish professional footballer who plays as a central midfielder for Derby County and the Republic of Ireland national team. His previous clubs include Aston Villa, Barnsley, Plymout ...

in the squad for the

World Cup Qualification The FIFA World Cup qualification is a competitive match that a national association football team takes in order to qualify for one of the available berths at the final tournament of the (men's) FIFA World Cup. Qualifying tournaments are hel ...

matches against

Serbia Serbia (, ; Serbian language, Serbian: , , ), officially the Republic of Serbia (Serbian language, Serbian: , , ), is a landlocked country in Southeast Europe, Southeastern and Central Europe, situated at the crossroads of the Pannonian Bas ...

and

Luxembourg Luxembourg ( ; lb, Lëtzebuerg ; french: link=no, Luxembourg; german: link=no, Luxemburg), officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, ; french: link=no, Grand-Duché de Luxembourg ; german: link=no, Großherzogtum Luxemburg is a small lan ...

and a friendly against

Qatar Qatar (, ; ar, قطر, Qaṭar ; local vernacular pronunciation: ), officially the State of Qatar,) is a country in Western Asia. It occupies the Qatar Peninsula on the northeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula in the Middle East; it sh ...

, although did not make an appearance. On 6 June 2022, Coventry made his 25th appearance for the U21 side, in a 3–1 win over

Montenegro ) , image_map = Europe-Montenegro.svg , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Podgorica , coordinates = , largest_city = capital , official_languages = M ...

, setting a new national record for appearances at that level by a single player breaking the record of Graham Barrett.

Career statistics

Honours

West Ham United *

UEFA Europa Conference League The UEFA Europa Conference League (abbreviated as UECL) is an annual football club competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) for eligible European football clubs. Clubs qualify for the competition based on their ...

2022–23 The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen b ...

Individual *

Academy Player of the Year: 2017–18 * FAI Under-21 International Player of the Year: 2021

References

External links

Conor Coventry
at

West Ham United F.C. West Ham United Football Club is an English professional football club that plays its home matches in Stratford, East London. The club competes in the Premier League, the top tier of English football. The club plays at the London Stadium, h ...

Conor Coventry
at the Football Association of Ireland * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Coventry, Conor 2000 births Living people Republic of Ireland men's association footballers Republic of Ireland men's youth international footballers English men's footballers English people of Irish descent Men's association football midfielders West Ham United F.C. players Lincoln City F.C. players Peterborough United F.C. players Milton Keynes Dons F.C. players Rotherham United F.C. players English Football League players Premier League players Footballers from the London Borough of Waltham Forest