Jordan Owens (born 9 July 1989) is a Northern Irish

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 for

NIFL 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 ...

side

Crusaders The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and sometimes directed by the Latin Church in the medieval period. The best known of these Crusades are those to the Holy Land in the period between 1095 and 1291 that were in ...

as a striker. He is the club's all-time top goalscorer, having surpassed the record held by Glenn Hunter in January 2016.

Club career

Owens came up through the Crusaders youth system, and after impressive displays for the reserves, he made his debut towards the end of the 2007/08 season, scoring his first goal against

Larne Larne (, , the name of a Gaelic Ireland, Gaelic territory) is a town on the east coast of County Antrim, Northern Ireland, with a population of 18,755 at the United Kingdom census, 2011, 2011 Census. It is a major passenger and freight Roll-on/ro ...

. He also scored the opening goal in a 4–1 Irish Cup semi-final victory over

Institute An institute is an organisational body created for a certain purpose. They are often research organisations (research institutes) created to do research on specific topics, or can also be a professional body. In some countries, institutes can ...

to take the Crues into their first Irish Cup final in 29 years, and repeated the feat in 2011, scoring against

Portadown Portadown () is a town in County Armagh, Northern Ireland. The town sits on the River Bann in the north of the county, about southwest of Belfast. It is in the Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon Borough Council area and had a population of a ...

in another Irish Cup semi final. In the 2014–15 season he hit 30 goals as Crusaders finished as league champions. In January 2016 he scored against Rathfriland Rangers to break the Crusaders goalscoring record of 157, held since 1997 by Glenn Hunter. He is also the all-time top goalscorer in

North Belfast derby The North Belfast derby is the name given to football matches between Cliftonville and Crusaders who play in Belfast, Northern Ireland. The two are separated by around 1.5 miles with Cliftonville based at Solitude on Cliftonville Road and Cr ...

matches with Crusaders' nearest rivals

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 ...

. On 6 March 2018, Owens scored a hat-trick in a league match against

Glenavon Glenavon Football Club is a Northern Irish semi-professional football club that competes in the NIFL Premiership. Founded in 1889, the club hails from Lurgan and plays its home matches at Mourneview Park. Club colours are blue and white. Gar ...

to surpass 200 goals for Crusaders, becoming the first player to reach this milestone for the club.

International career

He has represented

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. Nort ...

at U19, U21, and U23 level, scoring for the U23s against

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...

He received a call-up to the full squad, along with team-mates

Stuart Dallas Stuart Dallas (born 19 April 1991) is a Northern Irish professional Association football, footballer who plays for Premier League club Leeds United F.C., Leeds United and the Northern Ireland national football team, Northern Ireland national team ...

and

Colin Coates Colin Victor Coates, (born 4 April 1946) is a former ice speed skater from Australia, who represented his native country in a record six consecutive Winter Olympics, starting in 1968 in Grenoble, France. Skating career Coates competed in six ...

, for the

2011 Nations Cup The 2011 Nations Cup (also known as the Carling Nations Cup after its headline sponsor) was a round-robin football tournament between the Northern Ireland, Republic of Ireland, Scotland, and Wales national teams. The first set of two games were ...

games against

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 ...

and

Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the Wales–England border, east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the ...

. He made his debut against Wales, coming on in the 79th minute.

Career statistics

Honours

Crusaders *

: 2014–15, 2015–16, 2017–18 *

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 ...

: 2008–09, 2018–19, 2021–22,

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 ...

Setanta Cup The Setanta Sports Cup was a club football competition featuring teams from both football associations on the island of Ireland. Inaugurated in 2005, it was a cross-border competition between clubs in the League of Ireland from the Republic of Ir ...

2012 File:2012 Events Collage V3.png, From left, clockwise: The passenger cruise ship Costa Concordia lies capsized after the Costa Concordia disaster; Damage to Casino Pier in Seaside Heights, New Jersey as a result of Hurricane Sandy; People gather ...

Irish League Cup The Northern Ireland Football League Cup (BetMcLean League Cup for sponsorship purposes), also known colloquially as the Irish League Cup, is a national football knock-out cup competition in Northern Ireland open to all member clubs of the Nort ...

: 2011–12 *

County Antrim Shield The County Antrim & District Football Association Senior Shield (more commonly known as the County Antrim Shield) is a football competition in Northern Ireland. The competition is open to senior teams who are members of the North East Ulster Foo ...

: 2009–10, 2017–18, 2018–19 *

NIFL Charity Shield The Northern Ireland Football League Charity Shield is the national association football super cup in Northern Ireland. It has been held on an occasional basis since its inauguration in 1992. Similar to the English FA Community Shield, it pits to ...

: 2022

References

Living people 1989 births Association footballers from Belfast Men's association footballers from Northern Ireland Men's association football forwards Crusaders F.C. players NIFL Premiership players Northern Ireland men's international footballers Northern Ireland men's under-21 international footballers {{NorthernIreland-footy-bio-stub