Stephen John Hughes (born 18 September 1976) is an English 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 ...

and pundit. He played as a midfielder notably in 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 ...

for

Arsenal An arsenal is a place where arms and ammunition are made, maintained and repaired, stored, or issued, in any combination, whether privately or publicly owned. Arsenal and armoury (British English) or armory (American English) are mostly ...

, Everton and

Charlton Athletic Charlton Athletic Football Club is an English professional football club based in Charlton, south-east London, which compete in . Their home ground is The Valley, where the club have played since 1919. They have also played at The Mount in C ...

, and 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 ...

for

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 ...

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 ...

Coventry City Coventry City Football Club is a professional association football club based in Coventry, West Midlands (county), West Midlands, England. The team currently compete in the EFL Championship, Championship, the second tier of the English footbal ...

and

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 was capped at both England U18 and U21 levels.

Club career

Hughes started his career at

, with whom he won the

FA Youth Cup The Football Association Youth Challenge Cup is an English football competition run by The Football Association for under-18 sides. Only those players between the age of 15 and 18 on 31 August of the current season are eligible to take part. It ...

1994 File:1994 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1994 Winter Olympics are held in Lillehammer, Norway; The Kaiser Permanente building after the 1994 Northridge earthquake; A model of the MS Estonia, which Sinking of the MS Estonia, sank in ...

. He then made 16 first team appearances to earn a winners medal as Arsenal won the 1998 Premier League title. Hughes' highlight for that season was scoring twice as Arsenal defeated Chelsea 2–0 at Highbury. He also made 6 appearances in Arsenal's

FA Cup The Football Association Challenge Cup, more commonly known as the FA Cup, is an annual knockout football competition in men's domestic English football. First played during the 1871–72 season, it is the oldest national football competi ...

run that season, including the semi-final against

Wolves The wolf (''Canis lupus''; plural, : wolves), also known as the gray wolf or grey wolf, is a large Canis, canine native to Eurasia and North America. More than thirty subspecies of Canis lupus, subspecies of ''Canis lupus'' have been reco ...

, but was left out of the squad for the

1998 FA Cup Final The 1998 FA Cup Final was a football match between Arsenal and Newcastle United on 16 May 1998 at the old Wembley Stadium, London. It was the final match of the 1997–98 FA Cup, the 117th season of the world's oldest football knockout compet ...

as they clinched the double. Another highlight was a 25-yard last minute equaliser against Leicester City at Filbert Street the following season. Altogether with Arsenal he made 76 senior appearances with 40 of them as a substitute, and scored 7 goals. Hughes then moved to Everton in March 2000, for a fee of £3 million. He played 33 games for them before being released on a free transfer on 4 July 2001. He then moved on to First Division side

that same month, having scored his two Everton goals against them; once in the league and once in the FA Cup. He only managed 17 games in his first season due to injury. His contract was settled early in the 2002–03 season. He signed for

in August 2003. but made no appearances that season and subsequently left on a free transfer to join Coventry City in July 2004. He went on to become the club's captain and made over 150 appearances.

Personal life

After his retirement from football, Hughes returned to the Gunners as a commentator and pundit for

Arsenal Player An arsenal is a place where arms and ammunition are made, maintained and repaired, stored, or issued, in any combination, whether privately or publicly owned. Arsenal and armoury (British English) or armory (American English) are mostly ...

Career statistics

¹ includes

FA Charity Shield The Football Association Community Shield (formerly the Charity Shield) is English football's annual match contested at Wembley Stadium between the champions of the previous Premier League season and the holders of the FA Cup. If the Premier Le ...

and

Football League 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 Leag ...

Honours

Arsenal *

: 1997–98 *

1998 1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''. Events January * January 6 – The '' Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for frozen water, in soil in permanently ...

: 1993–94 Individual *

Player of the Year: 2004–05 *Coventry City Players' Player of the Year: 2004–05

References

External links

*
Stephen Hughes profile
at the

official website {{DEFAULTSORT:Hughes, Stephen 1976 births Living people Sportspeople from Wokingham English men's footballers Men's association football midfielders Arsenal F.C. players Everton F.C. players Fulham F.C. players Watford F.C. players Charlton Athletic F.C. players Coventry City F.C. players Walsall F.C. players Premier League players English Football League players England men's under-21 international footballers Footballers from Berkshire