Graham Anthony Kavanagh (born 2 December 1973) is an Irish

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

manager and former professional player. Kavanagh had a 19-year-long career and played for

Middlesbrough Middlesbrough ( ) is a town on the southern bank of the River Tees in North Yorkshire, England. It is near the North York Moors national park. It is the namesake and main town of its local borough council area. Until the early 1800s, the a ...

Stoke City Stoke City Football Club is a professional football club based in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England, which competes in the . Founded as Stoke Ramblers in 1863, it changed its name to Stoke in 1878 and then to Stoke City in 1925 after Stoke ...

Cardiff City Cardiff City Football Club ( cy, Clwb Pêl-droed Dinas Caerdydd) is a professional association football club based in Cardiff, Wales. It competes in the Championship, the second tier of the English football league system. Founded in 1899 as R ...

Wigan Athletic Wigan Athletic Football Club () is an English professional association football club based in Wigan, Greater Manchester, England. The team competes in the Championship, the second tier of the English football league system. Founded in 1932, ...

Sunderland Sunderland () is a port city in Tyne and Wear, England. It is the City of Sunderland's administrative centre and in the Historic counties of England, historic county of County of Durham, Durham. The city is from Newcastle-upon-Tyne and is on t ...

Sheffield Wednesday Sheffield Wednesday Football Club is a professional association football club based in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England. The team competes in League One, the third tier of the English football league system. Formed in 1867 as an offshoot of ...

and

Carlisle United Carlisle United Football Club ( , ) is a professional association football club based in Carlisle, Cumbria, England. The team compete in , the fourth tier of the English football league system. They have played their home games at Brunton Par ...

. He also played 16 games for the

Republic of Ireland national football team , FIFA Trigramme = IRL , Name = Republic of Ireland , Association = Football Association of Ireland (FAI) , Confederation = UEFA (Europe) , website fai.ie, Coach = Stephen Kenny (foot ...

, scoring once.

Club career

Kavanagh began his career at Home Farm, before joining

in 1991 but struggled to ever hold down a first team place and was sold to

in 1996, after a short loan spell at the club, for £250,000. In 1996–97 he made 41 appearances scoring four goals including the final goal at the

Victoria Ground The Victoria Ground was the home ground of Stoke City from 1878 until 1997, when the club relocated to the Britannia Stadium after 119 years. At the time of its demolition it was the oldest operational ground in the Football League. History ...

against

West Bromwich Albion West Bromwich Albion Football Club () is an English professional football club based in West Bromwich, West Midlands, England. They compete in the EFL Championship, the second tier of English football. The club was formed in 1878 and has pla ...

. Kavanagh also had the honour of scoring Stoke's first goal at the

Britannia Stadium The Bet365 Stadium (stylised as ''bet365 Stadium'') is an all-seater football stadium in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England and the home of EFL Championship club Stoke City. The stadium was previously called the Britannia Stadium but ...

in a League Cup match against

Rochdale Rochdale ( ) is a large town in Greater Manchester, England, at the foothills of the South Pennines in the dale on the River Roch, northwest of Oldham and northeast of Manchester. It is the administrative centre of the Metropolitan Borough ...

. He scored 10 goals in 1997–98 as Stoke suffered relegation to the third tier. In 1998–99 he top-scored with 13 goals as failed mount a sustained promotion challenge under

Brian Little Brian Little (born 25 November 1953) is an English football manager and former player. As a player, Little was a striker who spent his entire career for Aston Villa in a career that spanned from 1971 to 1980. He made 247 league appearances, ...

in 1998–99. In 1999–2000 Kavanagh scored 10 goals as Stoke reached the play-offs where they lost to Gillingham. He also played and scored in the

2000 Football League Trophy final The 2000 Football League Trophy Final (known as the Auto Windscreens Shield for sponsorship reasons) was the 17th final of the domestic football cup competition for teams from the Second and Third Division of the Football League. The match wa ...

as Stoke beat

Bristol City Bristol City Football Club is a professional football club based in Bristol, England, which compete in the , the second tier of English football. They have played their home games at Ashton Gate since moving from St John's Lane in 1904. The ...

2–1. He was again a regular in 2000–01 as Stoke again failed in the play-offs this time losing to

Walsall Walsall (, or ; locally ) is a market town and administrative centre in the West Midlands (county), West Midlands County, England. Historic counties of England, Historically part of Staffordshire, it is located north-west of Birmingham, east ...

. He left Stoke in the summer of 2001 after making 244 appearances scoring 45 goals. He joined

in July 2001 for £1 million, and went on to score fifteen times in his first season at the club and help them to promotion the following year when they beat

Queens Park Rangers Queens Park Rangers Football Club, commonly abbreviated to QPR, is a professional football club based in Shepherd's Bush, West London, England, which compete in the . After a nomadic early existence, they have played home matches at Loftus Ro ...

in the Second Division play-off final. He scored one of Cardiff's goals as they memorably knocked out then Premiership Leeds United in the FA Cup third round in 2002. He also scored the winning goal in the

FAW Premier Cup The FAW Premier Cup (until 1998 the FAW Invitation Cup) was a Welsh football cup competition, organised annually by the Football Association of Wales from 1997 to 2008. Since the FAW excluded clubs playing in English leagues (including six Welsh c ...

final against rivals

Swansea Swansea (; cy, Abertawe ) is a coastal city and the second-largest city of Wales. It forms a principal area, officially known as the City and County of Swansea ( cy, links=no, Dinas a Sir Abertawe). The city is the twenty-fifth largest in ...

During the 2004–05 season Cardiff chairman

Sam Hammam Sam, SAM or variants may refer to: Places * Sam, Benin * Sam, Boulkiemdé, Burkina Faso * Sam, Bourzanga, Burkina Faso * Sam, Kongoussi, Burkina Faso * Sam, Iran * Sam, Teton County, Idaho, United States, a populated place People and fictio ...

revealed that the club was in serious financial trouble and as such a number of players left the club to attempt to regain losses, including Kavanagh who signed for

for a fee close to £400,000. Whilst at Wigan he started in the

2006 Football League Cup Final The 2006 Football League Cup Final also known as the 2006 Carling Cup Final for sponsorship reasons, was played between Manchester United and Wigan Athletic on 26 February 2006. Manchester United won the match comfortably, by four goals to nil. L ...

. On 31 August 2006, he signed a three-year deal with

Roy Keane Roy Maurice Keane (born 10 August 1971) is an Irish football pundit, coach and former professional player. He is the joint most successful Irish footballer of all time, having won 19 major trophies in his club career, 17 of which came during ...

for £500,000. During that season he played 14 games, scoring one goal against Leeds, before he was ruled out for the majority of games due to lingering injury problems. He joined

on 21 September 2007 on a loan deal to regain his fitness where he played seven games, scoring one goal against

Watford Watford () is a town and borough in Hertfordshire, England, 15 miles northwest of Central London, on the River Colne. Initially a small market town, the Grand Junction Canal encouraged the construction of paper-making mills, print works, a ...

on 2 October. On 29 December,

Leicester City Leicester ( ) is a city, unitary authority and the county town of Leicestershire in the East Midlands of England. It is the largest settlement in the East Midlands. The city lies on the River Soar and close to the eastern end of the National ...

made a bid for Kavanagh, together with

Márton Fülöp Márton Fülöp (; 3 May 1983 – 12 November 2015) was a Hungarian professional footballer who played as a goalkeeper. After playing in Hungary for MTK Budapest, BKV Előre SC and BFC Siófok, he signed for English club Tottenham Hotspur, who ...

. However, on 31 January 2008 Kavanagh again joined Wednesday on a loan deal until the end of the season. Kavanagh joined

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 ...

side

on a month's loan on 10 October 2008. This loan was extended for a further month on 7 November. It was again extended on 18 December and would expire on 3 January 2009.

Managerial career

On 9 January 2009, Kavanagh was released by Sunderland and returned to Carlisle on a permanent basis as a player-coach. In April 2013, Kavanagh continued his post as Assistant Manager at the end of the 2012–13 season, after signing a new one-year deal. In September 2013 manager Greg Abbott was sacked and Kavanagh was installed as caretaker manager. Kavanagh was then appointed manager on a permanent basis on 30 September 2013 signing a two-year contract. Carlisle were 22nd on the ladder at the time of Kavanagh's caretaker appointment, and finished the 2013–14 season in the same position, to be relegated to

League Two The English Football League Two (often referred to as League Two for short or Sky Bet League Two for sponsorship purposes, and known as the Football League Two from 2004 until 2016) is the third and lowest division of the English Football Lea ...

. After a poor start to the 2014–15 season Kavanagh left Carlisle on 1 September 2014.

International career

Kavanagh earned 16 international

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 ...

for the

Republic of Ireland Ireland ( ga, Éire ), also known as the Republic of Ireland (), is a country in north-western Europe consisting of 26 of the 32 counties of the island of Ireland. The capital and largest city is Dublin, on the eastern side of the island. A ...

, the last of which was on 16 August 2006 against the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

Personal life

His son

Calum Calum is a given name. It is a variation of the name Callum, which is a Scottish Gaelic name that commemorates the Latin name Columba, meaning "dove". It may refer to: * Calum Angus (born 1986), English footballer *Calum Best (born 1981), British/ ...

is a professional footballer for

Harrogate Town Harrogate Town A.F.C. is a professional association football club in Harrogate, North Yorkshire, England, which competes in League Two, the fourth tier of the English football league system. The club is nicknamed the Sulphurites, due to the ...

, on loan from

Career statistics

Club

International

Managerial statistics

Honours

Individual *

PFA Team of the Year The Professional Footballers' Association Team of the Year (often called the PFA Team of the Year, or simply the Team of the Year) is an annual award given to a set of 55 footballers across the top four tiers of men's English football; the Premie ...

: 1998–99 Second Division, 1999–2000 Second Division, 2000–01 Second Division, 2001–02 Second Division, 2002–03 Second Division

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Kavanagh, Graham 1973 births Living people Association footballers from Dublin (city) Republic of Ireland association footballers Republic of Ireland international footballers Republic of Ireland under-21 international footballers Republic of Ireland youth international footballers Association football midfielders Home Farm F.C. players Middlesbrough F.C. players Stoke City F.C. players Cardiff City F.C. players Wigan Athletic F.C. players Sunderland A.F.C. players Sheffield Wednesday F.C. players Carlisle United F.C. players Premier League players English Football League players Darlington F.C. players Carlisle United F.C. managers English Football League managers Republic of Ireland football managers