Stuart Golabek (born 5 November 1974 in

Inverness Inverness (; from the gd, Inbhir Nis , meaning "Mouth of the River Ness"; sco, Innerness) is a city in the Scottish Highlands. It is the administrative centre for The Highland Council and is regarded as the capital of the Highlands. Histori ...

) is a

Scottish Scottish usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including: *Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family native to Scotland *Scottish English *Scottish national identity, the Scottish ide ...

retired 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 last played for Highland League side

Brora Rangers Brora Rangers Football Club are a Scottish football club from the village of Brora, Sutherland, in the Highland council area of Scotland. They play in the Highland Football League, of which they have been champions four times, having won thei ...

Career

Golabek began his career with Highland League side

Clachnacuddin Clachnacuddin Football Club is a part-time, senior Scottish football club based in the city of Inverness, that currently plays in the Highland Football League. Clachnacuddin have won the most Highland Football League championships in the com ...

, before moving to Ross County, where he played for nearly four years, before joining

Inverness Caledonian Thistle Inverness Caledonian Thistle Football Club, commonly known as Caley Thistle, is a professional football club based in Inverness, Scotland. The team currently competes in the Scottish Championship, the second tier of the Scottish Professional F ...

in June 1999. He quickly made a name for himself as a strong, hard-tackling defender and soon became an important member of the first team. In his first

season A season is a division of the year based on changes in weather, ecology, and the number of daylight hours in a given region. On Earth, seasons are the result of the axial parallelism of Earth's tilted orbit around the Sun. In temperate and pol ...

with Inverness, Golabek was a member of the team that famously beat

Celtic Celtic, Celtics or Keltic may refer to: Language and ethnicity *pertaining to Celts, a collection of Indo-European peoples in Europe and Anatolia **Celts (modern) *Celtic languages **Proto-Celtic language * Celtic music *Celtic nations Sports Fo ...

in the

Scottish Cup The Scottish Football Association Challenge Cup,Bobby Mann Robert (Bobby) Alexander Mann (born 11 January 1974) is a Scottish former professional footballer who last played for Formartine United. During his youth career, Mann played for St Columba U9s, West Park U10s, Fairmuir u11s to U15s and Dundee ...

left the club in the summer of 2004, Golabek was made team captain. The highlights of Stuart Golabek's career include two wins against Celtic in the

Scottish Cup The Scottish Football Association Challenge Cup,Scottish Challenge Cup The Scottish Professional Football League Challenge Cup,2003 File:2003 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The crew of STS-107 perished when the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated during reentry into Earth's atmosphere; SARS became an epidemic in China, and was a precursor to SARS-CoV-2; A des ...

and winning the First Division in

2004 2004 was designated as an International Year of Rice by the United Nations, and the International Year to Commemorate the Struggle Against Slavery and its Abolition (by UNESCO). Events January * January 3 – Flash Airlines Flight 6 ...

and

2010 File:2010 Events Collage New.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2010 Chile earthquake was one of the strongest recorded in history; The Eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland disrupts air travel in Europe; A scene from the opening ceremony of ...

, all with ''Caley''. By January 2007, he made only two league appearances in the 2006–07 season and was going to be transferred to Peterhead on loan until the end of the season. However, this fell through and he went to

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 ...

on loan instead. On 30 May 2007, it was announced that Golabek had joined Ross County on a free transfer. He became new manager Dick Campbell's first signing. Golabek returned to Inverness in 2009, signing a one-year contract. He signed a contract extension to play in the

Scottish Premier League The Scottish Premier League (SPL) was the top level league competition for professional football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football' ...

for the 2010–11 season.

Brora Rangers

On 22 May 2011, it was announced that Golabek was due to return to the Highland League by joining

. He retired from playing in 2014.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Golabek, Stuart 1974 births Living people Footballers from Inverness Scottish footballers Ross County F.C. players Inverness Caledonian Thistle F.C. players Livingston F.C. players Scottish Premier League players Scottish Football League players Association football defenders Clachnacuddin F.C. players Brora Rangers F.C. players Highland Football League players