Craig Peter Halkett (born 29 May 1995) is a Scottish

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 defender for Scottish Premiership club Heart of Midlothian. Initially a striker in his youth, Halkett joined Glasgow Rangers F.C.(1872) at age 14 before being moved to defensive roles and being loaned out to

Scottish League Two The Scottish League Two, known as cinch League Two for sponsorship reasons, is the fourth tier of the Scottish Professional Football League, the league competition for men's professional football clubs in Scotland. The Scottish League Two was ...

clubs Clyde and Berwick Rangers. After being released by Rangers, Halkett spent several years at

Livingston Livingston may refer to: Businesses * Livingston Energy Flight, an Italian airline (2003–2010) * Livingston Compagnia Aerea, an Italian airline (2011–2014), also known as Livingston Airline * Livingston International, a North American custom ...

, making over 100 appearances, before signing a contract with Heart of Midlothian in 2019.

Club career

Rangers

Raised in

Kirkintilloch Kirkintilloch (; sco, Kirkintulloch; gd, Cair Cheann Tulaich) is a town and former barony burgh in East Dunbartonshire, Scotland. It lies on the Forth and Clyde Canal and on the south side of Strathkelvin, about northeast of central Glasgow. ...

and a boyhood

Rangers A Ranger is typically someone in a military/paramilitary or law enforcement role specializing in patrolling a given territory, called “ranging”. The term most often refers to: * Park ranger or forest ranger, a person charged with protecting and ...

fan, Halkett joined the club as a youngster. Initially playing as a

striker Striker or The Strikers may refer to: People *A participant in a strike action *A participant in a hunger strike *Blacksmith's striker, a type of blacksmith's assistant *Striker's Independent Society, the oldest mystic krewe in America People wi ...

, he was moved into more defensive roles by youth coach

Alan Kernaghan Alan Nigel Kernaghan (born 25 April 1967) is a association football, football manager and former professional player. As a player, he was a defender (association football), defender from 1985 to 2006, notably in the Premier League for Manchest ...

. After winning the Scottish Youth Cup in

2014 File:2014 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Stocking up supplies and personal protective equipment (PPE) for the Western African Ebola virus epidemic; Citizens examining the ruins after the Chibok schoolgirls kidnapping; Bundles of wat ...

, he was loaned out twice, to Clyde and Berwick Rangers, both playing in the fourth tier.

Livingston

In January 2016, Halkett was informed by Rangers that there was no immediate prospect of him progressing to the first team and he left the Ibrox club without having made a senior appearance, joining then Scottish Championship side

. He scored his first professional goal against Rangers in a 1–0 win for Livingston on 26 April 2016. The ''Lions'' were relegated from the Championship at the end of his first campaign in a play-off, but Halkett became an increasingly important player for the

West Lothian West Lothian ( sco, Wast Lowden; gd, Lodainn an Iar) is one of the 32 council areas of Scotland, and was one of its shires of Scotland, historic counties. The county was called Linlithgowshire until 1925. The historic county was bounded geogra ...

side, helping them to immediately return from League One in 2016–17, followed by a second consecutive promotion to the Scottish Premiership after finishing runners-up in the regular season, once more via the play-offs. Halkett was made club captain, and was an important part of Livingston's 2018–19 season, with the team's defence gaining much praise with the relatively few number of goals conceded compared to similarly-placed teams in the league.

Hearts

In April 2019, Halkett signed a pre-contract agreement with Hearts. He suffered a knee injury in October 2019, and it was announced he would be out for 10 weeks. On 11 January 2022, Halkett signed a new two-and-a-half year contract with Hearts, keeping him at the club until the end of the 2023–24 season.

International career

Halkett represented Scotland once, at under-19 level in 2014. He received his first call-up to the senior Scotland squad in March 2022.

Career statistics

Honours

Rangers Academy * Scottish Youth Cup: 2013–14 Livingston * Scottish League One: 2016–17 Heart of Midlothian * Scottish Championship:

2020–21 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 ...

* Scottish Cup: Runner-up 2019–20 Individual *

PFA Scotland Team of the Year The Professional Footballers' Association Scotland Team of the Year (often called the PFA Scotland Team of the Year, or simply the Team of the Year) is an annual award given to a set of 44 footballers in the four national tiers of the Scottish foot ...

2018–19 Scottish Premiership The 2018–19 Scottish Premiership (known as the Ladbrokes Premiership for sponsorship reasons) was the sixth season of the Scottish Premiership, the highest division of Scottish football. The fixtures were published on 15 June 2018 and the sea ...

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Halkett, Craig 1995 births Living people Scottish footballers People educated at Kirkintilloch High School Sportspeople from Kirkintilloch Association football defenders Rangers F.C. players Berwick Rangers F.C. players Livingston F.C. players Scottish Professional Football League players Clyde F.C. players Scotland youth international footballers Heart of Midlothian F.C. players