September proved to be a good month
for Northern Ireland's David Healy, a striker who earned 95 caps and
scored 36 goals for his country. He is the most capped Northern
Ireland outfield player, only Pat Jennings (goalkeeper) holds more
caps, 119.
In a UEFA European Championship
qualifier match, Healy scored against Iceland on September 12th
2007, equalling Davor Suker's record from 1996, when he totted up 12
goals in 10 games in UEFA qualifiers.
Two months later on the 17th
November 2007, against Denmark, Healy struck again making a total of
13 goals in 11 (the finals were held in 2008) and this beat the
record.
On September 6th 2006, in a
famous 3-2 victory over Spain, Healy scored all three goals for his
country in Belfast (the last man to do this was George Best) and
later with a treble against Liechtenstein, he became the first
Northern Ireland player to score two hat tricks at that level.
On the 7th September 2005 he
scored the only goal that beat England at Windsor Park (the first N.
Irish victory anywhere against England since 1972) in a World Cup
qualifier and in 2004, the one goal scored by Northern Ireland in a
1-4 defeat by Norway, was by Healy who ended his country's longest
international goal drought of 2 years and 1298 minutes! Thirteen and
a half matches. They had not won for 28 months! Then immediately
Gillespie scored in his own net!
In September 2004, he was sent off
against Wales after scoring and making “hand gestures” to the
crowd. He claims he was waving to his family.
In September 2000 against Malta he made
his debut in a World Cup qualifier, his first competitive
international. A month later he scored his first competitive
international goal against Denmark.
He also played for 12 different English
and Scottish league clubs, appearing 377 times and scored his 20th
international goal on the day of his 50th cap. Healy was
awarded his MBE in 2008 for services to football.
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