David Howland (born 17 September 1986) is a Northern Irish former 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 played 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 ...

. He scored 17 goals in 171 league and cup appearances in an eleven-year career in professional and semi-professional football in England and Northern Ireland. A Northern Ireland under-21 international, he started his career at

Birmingham City Birmingham City Football Club is a professional football club based in Birmingham, England. Formed in 1875 as Small Heath Alliance, it was renamed Small Heath in 1888, Birmingham in 1905, and Birmingham City in 1943. Since 2011, the first te ...

. In January 2008, he was loaned out to Port Vale and joined the club permanently at the end of the season. He was released by Port Vale in the summer of 2010, at which point he signed with

Glentoran Glentoran Football Club is a professional football club that plays in the NIFL Premiership. The club was founded in 1882. History Early history In 1914, Glentoran won the Vienna Cup, becoming the first United Kingdom team to win a European t ...

. He helped the club win the

Irish Cup The Irish Football Association Challenge Cup, commonly referred to as the Irish Cup (currently known as the Samuel Gelston's Whiskey Irish Cup for sponsorship purposes) is the primary football knock-out cup competition in Northern Ireland. Ina ...

in 2013 before he retired due to an injury in August 2016.

Club career

Birmingham City

Howland was born in

Ballynahinch, County Down Ballynahinch () is a town in County Down, Northern Ireland. It had a population of 5,703 people in the 2011 Census. Ballynahinch was traditionally a market town, although the market still takes place in the square every Thursday. The town lie ...

, and joined

Academy An academy ( Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy ...

in 2002. He signed his first one-year professional

contract A contract is a legally enforceable agreement between two or more parties that creates, defines, and governs mutual rights and obligations between them. A contract typically involves the transfer of goods, services, money, or a promise to tran ...

in 2005, which was renewed for another year. He was allocated a first-team

squad number In team sports, the number, often referred to as the uniform number, squad number, jersey number, shirt number, sweater number, or similar (with such naming differences varying by sport and region) is the number worn on a player's uniform, to ...

for the first time during the 2006–07 season and signed a further year's contract before the 2007–08 season. A central midfielder, he played regularly for Birmingham's

reserve team In sports, a reserve team is a team composed of players under contract to a club but who do not normally play in matches for the first team. Reserve teams often include back-up players from the first team, young players who need playing time to i ...

but did not make an appearance for the first team. He was an unused substitute in the

League Cup In several sports, most prominently association football, a league cup or secondary cup generally signifies a cup competition for which entry is restricted only to teams in a particular league. The first national association football tournament t ...

fourth-round tie against

Blackburn Rovers Blackburn Rovers Football Club is a professional football club, based in Blackburn, Lancashire, England, which competes in the , the second tier of the English football league system. They have played home matches at Ewood Park since 1890. T ...

in September 2007 in unusual circumstances. Birmingham had selected the 15-year-old

Jordon Mutch Jordon James Edward Sydney Mutch (born 2 December 1991) is an English professional footballer who most recently played as a central midfielder for Australian A-League club Macarthur FC. Mutch joined Birmingham City in 2007 from Derby County's yo ...

, having obtained confirmation from the

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 ...

that it was within the rules for a boy of that age to play, but were informed less than two hours before kick-off that due to

the Football Association The Football Association (also known as The FA) is the Sports governing body, governing body of association football in England and the Crown Dependencies of Jersey, Bailiwick of Guernsey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man. Formed in 1863, it is the ...

's child protection rules, Mutch would not be eligible. Special dispensation was granted for Howland, who had not been assigned a squad number for the 2007–08 season, to take his place on the bench wearing a numberless shirt.

Port Vale

In January 2008, he joined

Port Vale Port Vale Football Club are a professional football club based in Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent, England, which compete in . Vale are the only English Football League club not to be named after a place; their name being a reference to the valley o ...

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 ...

loan In finance, a loan is the lending of money by one or more individuals, organizations, or other entities to other individuals, organizations, etc. The recipient (i.e., the borrower) incurs a debt and is usually liable to pay interest on that d ...

for the remainder of the season and made his debut in the

Football League The English Football League (EFL) is a league of professional football clubs from England and Wales. Founded in 1888 as the Football League, the league is the oldest such competition in the world. It was the top-level football league in Engla ...

on 26 January 2008, against

AFC Bournemouth AFC Bournemouth () is a professional association football club based in Kings Park, Boscombe, a suburb of Bournemouth, Dorset, England. The club competes in the Premier League, the highest division of English club football. Formed in 1899 as B ...

. At the end of the season, he was released by Birmingham, but his performance while on loan at Port Vale was sufficient to earn him a two-year permanent deal. He was among the few Vale players to hit 40 games in the 2008–09 season. He enjoyed his time under

Dean Glover Dean Victor Glover (born 29 December 1963) is an English former football player and manager. A cultured and stylish defender, he had the ball control skills of a midfielder. He played 457 league games in a seventeen-year career in the English ...

, especially in games with Glover's five-man midfield

tactic Tactic(s) or Tactical may refer to: * Tactic (method), a conceptual action implemented as one or more specific tasks ** Military tactics, the disposition and maneuver of units on a particular sea or battlefield ** Chess tactics ** Political tact ...

. However, he was

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-listed by new

manager Management (or managing) is the administration of an organization, whether it is a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government body. It is the art and science of managing resources of the business. Management includes the activities o ...

Micky Adams Michael Richard Adams (born 8 November 1961) is an English former professional association football, footballer and football manager. As a player, he was a Full-back (football), full back, and made a total of 438 league appearances in a ninete ...

in August 2009, along with five others, having failed to impress in the pre-season. After a month on the transfer list, he was the only one of the six to have received no inquiries from any clubs, which came as a surprise to many Vale fans. He returned to the Vale first team in mid-September after impressing in training, though he remained transfer-listed. In April 2010, he learned that he would not be offered a new contract by manager

Glentoran

In September 2010, Howland left England for

Belfast Belfast ( , ; from ga, Béal Feirste , meaning 'mouth of the sand-bank ford') is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan on the east coast. It is the 12th-largest city in the United Kingdo ...

, signing a season-long contract with

IFA Premiership The NIFL Premiership, known as the Danske Bank Premiership for sponsorship purposes, and colloquially as the Irish League or Irish Premiership, is a professional association football league which operates as the highest division of the Northe ...

club

. He made his debut in the televised

Sky Sports Sky Sports is a group of British subscription sports channels operated by the satellite pay television company Sky Group (a division of Comcast), and is the dominant subscription television sports brand in the United Kingdom and Ireland. It ...

match at home to Linfield. He was utilised in the

playmaker In association football, a playmaker is a player who controls the flow of the team's play, and is often involved in offensively and defensively playing passing moves which lead to goals, through their vision, technique, ball control, creativit ...

role in the heart of the midfield. The "Glens" finished in third place in

2010–11 1 (one, unit, unity) is a number representing a single or the only entity. 1 is also a numerical digit and represents a single unit of counting or measurement. For example, a line segment of ''unit length'' is a line segment of length 1. I ...

, qualifying for the

UEFA Europa League The UEFA Europa League (abbreviated as UEL, or sometimes, UEFA EL), formerly the UEFA Cup, is an annual football club competition organised since 1971 by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) for eligible European football clubs. It ...

. In January 2011, he signed a contract to keep him at the club until 2014. Glentoran then finished sixth in 2011–12. They finished fourth in

2012–13 1 (one, unit, unity) is a number representing a single or the only entity. 1 is also a numerical digit and represents a single unit of counting or measurement. For example, a line segment of ''unit length'' is a line segment of length 1. I ...

and qualified for the Europa League. Glentoran also won the

, and Howland played in the 3–1 final victory over

Cliftonville Cliftonville is a coastal area of the town of Margate, situated to the east of the main town, in the Thanet district of Kent, South East England, United Kingdom. It also contains the area known as Palm Bay. The original Palm Bay estate was ...

. Howland also featured in the club's Europa League qualification defeat to

Iceland Iceland ( is, Ísland; ) is a Nordic island country in the North Atlantic Ocean and in the Arctic Ocean. Iceland is the most sparsely populated country in Europe. Iceland's capital and largest city is Reykjavík, which (along with its s ...

ic club KR. The "Glens" finished the 2013–14 season in fifth place, though Howland missed much of the campaign after injuring

cartilage Cartilage is a resilient and smooth type of connective tissue. In tetrapods, it covers and protects the ends of long bones at the joints as articular cartilage, and is a structural component of many body parts including the rib cage, the neck an ...

in his knee. He featured ten times in the 2014–15 campaign and just once in the 2015–16 season before he announced his retirement in August 2016, owing to a long-standing injury.

International career

Howland represented Northern Ireland at junior levels and was first selected for the under-21 squad in February 2006. He won four

caps Caps are flat headgear. Caps or CAPS may also refer to: Science and technology Computing * CESG Assisted Products Service, provided by the U.K. Government Communications Headquarters * Composite Application Platform Suite, by Java Caps, a Java ...

at under-21 level. Note this source says 3 appearances, which was correct when accessed in January 2008; it was not updated for the match he played in March of that year.

Physiotherapy career

Howland graduated as a

physiotherapist Physical therapy (PT), also known as physiotherapy, is one of the allied health professions. It is provided by physical therapists who promote, maintain, or restore health through physical examination, diagnosis, management, prognosis, patient ...

and secured a job at the

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 ...

in 2016.

Career statistics

Honours

Glentoran *

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Howland, David People from Ballynahinch, County Down Association footballers from County Down Men's association footballers from Northern Ireland Northern Ireland men's under-21 international footballers Men's association football midfielders Birmingham City F.C. players Port Vale F.C. players Glentoran F.C. players English Football League players Association football physiotherapists Crewe Alexandra F.C. non-playing staff 1986 births Living people