Freddy Eastwood

Freddy Eastwood
Personnel
Surname	Frederick Eastwood
birthday	October 29, 1983
place of birth	Basildon ,  England
position	striker
Juniors
Years	station
1997-1999	Southend United
1999-2002	West Ham United
Men's
Years	station	Games (goals) 1
2002-2003	West Ham United	0 0(0)
2003-2004	Grays Athletic	55 (34)
2004	→  Southend United  (loan)	4 0(4)
2004-2007	Southend United	111 (49)
2007-2008	Wolverhampton Wanderers	31 0(3)
2008–	Coventry City	113 (17)
2012	→  Southend United  (loan)	7 0(2)
National team
Years	selection	Games (goals) 2
2007–	Wales	11 0(4)
1 Only league games are given. Status: end of season 2011/12 2 As of May 26, 2011

Frederick "Freddy" Eastwood (* 29. October 1983 in Basildon ) is a Welsh football player with Roma -origin. The striker is currently under contract with the English second division club Coventry City and is the current national player for the "Dragons".

Athletic career

Eastwood joined West Ham United's prestigious youth academy in 1999 . He had previously shown his talent at Southend United , but then preferred the London training facility. In the youth team of the "Hammers" he played together with the later national players Jermain Defoe , Anton Ferdinand and Glen Johnson , but was ultimately found not good enough by the then coach Glenn Roeder and rejected. It looked like that Eastwood should be denied a career in professional football and so he temporarily pursued a civil profession as a car salesman. He played football from August 2003 at the lower class club Grays Athletic ; he scored 37 competitive goals straight away in the 2003/04 season, which in turn attracted the attention of professional clubs, including Northampton Town , Swindon Town , Charlton Athletic and his youth club Southend United.

The choice fell on the fourth division club mentioned last. He moved to the "Shrimpers" on loan in October 2004 and made an impressive debut when he scored his first goal after just 7.7 seconds, setting a record in English professional football for the fastest goal by a debutant. With two more goals, he almost single-handedly ensured the 4-2 victory against the then front-runner Swansea City . From November 2004, Eastwood signed a three-year contract with Southend United and immediately celebrated his breakthrough. With a total of 24 goals in the 2004/05 season, he was largely responsible for the fact that his team reached the play-off finals for promotion to the third division and made it 2-0 victorious against Lincoln City at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff - he also scored the first goal in the game himself. He was finally promoted to "hero status" after another year when he scored 23 goals, so that together with Billy Sharp from Scunthorpe United, he won the top scorer's crown in Football League One and made a direct march into ensured the second-rate Football League Championship . For the promotion decision he had taken care of himself with two goals for a 2-2 draw at Swansea City. In his first second division game against Stoke City , Eastwood scored his 50th goal for the "Shrimpers", but after the 1-0 win, his team struggled in the 2006/07 season and ended up relegated to the third division immediately. Against this, there was a high point when Eastwood shot the only goal from long range to the 1-0 surprise win against Manchester United in the League Cup .

It followed in July 2007 with the signature of a four-year contract with Wolverhampton Wanderers and a transfer fee of 1.5 million pounds, the supposedly next development step. As before in Southend, Eastwood showed early form with the Wolves in the 2007/08 season, scoring his first goal on his debut against Bradford City and scoring three times in the first two league games. As a result, he was voted the best second division player of the month of August, but after increasing goal doldrums, he fell behind Andy Keogh , Jay Bothroyd , Kevin Kyle and Sylvan Ebanks-Blake in the pecking order and at times was not even on the bench. In March 2008, a move to Coventry City failed at the last minute, but at the end of the season coach Mick McCarthy suggested a club change. With only three goals in 35 games - but only ten of them from the start - he remained a foreign body in the Wolves game according to his coach.

With a four-month delay, Eastwood then went to second division competitor Coventry City and a transfer fee of 1.2 million pounds changed hands in the opposite direction. A week after the first game for his new club on August 9, 2008 against Norwich City (2-0), he scored for the first time in the 2-1 win against FC Barnsley for the "Sky Blues", but stayed in the 2008 season / 09 far behind previous goal quotas, which in turn was also due to the fact that he held the position in left midfield more often later in the season .

Welsh national team

Due to his paternal grandfather, who was born in Wales, Eastwood is eligible to play for the Welsh national team. There he was in the squad for the first time for the upcoming games in May 2006 against New Zealand and a short time later for the European Championship qualifier against the Czech Republic , but had to cancel his participation due to injury. He finally played his first international match under coach John Toshack on August 22, 2007, scoring the only goal in a 1-0 away win against Bulgaria . and remained in 2008 despite his difficulties in Wolverhampton a fixture in the offensive game of the "Dragons". Further evidence of this was his two goals in the 2-0 win against Luxembourg on March 26, 2008 .

Web links

• Freddy Eastwood in the soccerbase.com database
• Freddy Eastwood for the Welsh national team

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Tony Matthews: "Wolverhampton Wanderers - The Complete Records" (2008; p. 470) calls him "Frederick Eastwood"
2. ↑ Christos Kassimeris: Anti-Racism in European Football: Fair Play for All , 2009, p. 78
3. ↑ "Freddy Eastwood gunning for Lehmann" (telegraph.co.uk)
4. ↑ "Season 2003-4 in focus" ( Memento of the original from September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (graysathletic.co.uk) 
5. ^ "Eastwood set to become a Cobblers player" (Non League Daily)
6. ^ "Eastwood gets Charlton chance" (Non League Daily)
7. ^ "Eastwood joins Shrimpers" (BBC Sport)
8. ↑ "Southend 4-2 Swansea" (BBC Sport)
9. ^ "Southend complete Eastwood deal" (BBC Sport)
10. ↑ "Lincoln City 0-2 Southend United" (BBC Sport)
11. ↑ "Leading scorers: FL1 2005/06" ( Memento of the original from January 13, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (The Football League)  
12. ^ "Southend go up after Swansea draw" (BBC Sport)
13. ^ "Southend 1-0 Stoke" (BBC Sport)
14. ^ "Southend 1-0 Man Utd" (BBC Sport)
15. ^ "Eastwood completes move to Wolves" (BBC Sport)
16. ^ "Eastwood bags Championship award" (BBC Sport)
17. ↑ "Freddy was close to Coventry deal" (Express & Star)
18. ^ "Wolves put Eastwood up for sale" (BBC Sport)
19. ^ "Eastwood seals switch to Coventry" (BBC Sport)
20. ^ "Eastwood amongst new Welsh faces" (BBC Sport)
21. ↑ "Freddy may meet and greet" ( Memento of the original from August 5, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (Southend United FC)  
22. ↑ "Bulgaria 0-1 Wales" (BBC Sport)