Kevin Kyle

Kevin Kyle
Kyle in the Hearts jersey (2010)
Personnel
Surname	Kevin Alistair Kyle
birthday	June 7th 1981
place of birth	Stranraer ,  Scotland
position	Center Forward
Men's
Years	station	Games (goals) 1
2000-2006	Sunderland AFC	91 (18)
2000	→  Huddersfield Town  (loan)	4 0(0)
2000-2001	→  Darlington FC  (loan)	5 0(2)
2001	→  Rochdale AFC  (loan)	6 0(0)
2006-2009	Coventry City	44 0(5)
2008	→  Wolverhampton Wanderers  (loan)	12 0(1)
2008	→  Hartlepool United  (loan)	15 0(5)
2009-2010	FC Kilmarnock	43 (16)
2010–2012	Heart of Midlothian	19 0(7)
2012-2013	Glasgow Rangers	8 0(3)
2013-2014	Ayr United	24 0(5)
2014	Newton Stewart FC	1 0(3)
National team
Years	selection	Games (goals)
2002-2010	Scotland	10 0(1)
1 Only league games are given. As of July 1, 2013

Kevin Alistair Kyle (born June 7, 1981 in Stranraer ) is a former Scottish football player . The center forward initially worked for many years at various English clubs and was under contract with clubs in Scotland from 2009 to 2014.

Athletic career

Kyle grew up in the west Scottish coastal town of Stranraer and got his first footballing experience with his school team and in smaller amateur clubs. He played his way up to the selection team of Dumfries and Galloway , in which Allan Jenkins was also, for example , later long-time “support” of FC Stranraer and Scottish first division player with FC Gretna .

The center forward began his professional career in 2000 at AFC Sunderland in the north of England and made a name for himself in the reserve team with his good goal rate. The final breakthrough in the "first team" did not succeed, however, because he was in the shadow of the established attackers Kevin Phillips and Niall Quinn . Instead, the "Black Cats" loaned him to three clubs in the 2000/01 season - after the second division Huddersfield Town (September to October 2000) he landed again in the fourth after the stopover and fourth division FC Darlington (November 2000 to the end of the year) League at Rochdale AFC (January to February 2001). On April 28, 2001 he made his debut for Sunderland AFC as a substitute in the Premier League game at Southampton FC , which ended with a 1-0 win. It was not until the 2003/04 season when Kyle finally established himself with his now only second-rate club, was the best scorer of the season with 16 competitive goals together with Marcus Stewart and led his club into the play-off promotion games. A serious hip injury hindered this positive development from now on and he only celebrated his comeback on January 28, 2006 on the occasion of the FA Cup game at Brentford FC (1: 2). After his first - and only - Premier League goal against Manchester City (1: 2), he suffered the second first division relegation; he missed the crucial games because he had suffered a scald in the "crotch" while feeding his son, which was especially ridiculed in the tabloid media.

Shortly before the end of the summer transfer, Kyle moved to second division rivals Coventry City on August 25, 2006 for £ 600,000 . In the "Sky Blues" he was not very accurate with three goals despite regular appearances in the 2006/07 season and in the following games he was not very happy when two goals faced the same number of red cards within a month. With his own supporters, he now had a "difficult time" and so the club decided to loan Kyle to the Wolverhampton Wanderers until the end of the season . In the "Wolves" he played 13 competitive games, but only four of them were from the start. In Coventry, Kyle was henceforth disregarded and he only collected match practice with third division Hartlepool United from October 2008 until the end of the year and scored five goals in 15 games here.

On January 27, 2009, Coventry City announced the early termination of the contract by mutual agreement with Kyl, who in turn signed a 1½-year contract two days later with the Scottish first division club FC Kilmarnock . In his Scottish homeland, Kyle found good form straight away, scoring his first goal (1-1) on his debut against FC St. Mirren and scoring three times against FC Falkirk on April 11, 2009 . The fact that the "Killies" secured relegation in eighth place was largely attributed to Kyle's hit rate, who scored all seven goals of his team in the last four games. Before the start of the 2009/10 season, FC Kilmarnock promoted him to captain the team.

In June 2010 Kyle signed a new two-year contract with Heart of Midlothian and was practically "taken along" by his ex-Kilmarnock trainer Jim Jeffries . After 19 games in which he scored seven goals, Kyle moved to the Scottish fourth division club Glasgow Rangers for the 2012/13 season .

Scottish national team

Kyle made nine caps for the Scottish senior team between 2002 and 2004 . He made his debut on May 20, 2002 under coach Berti Vogts in Hong Kong against South Africa (0-2) and two days later he scored his first goal for a 4-0 win against the hosts . The constant good performance in Kilmarnock earned him a nomination for the "Bravehearts" again after a five-year absence. His participation in the last two World Cup qualifiers against Macedonia and the Netherlands in September 2009 he had to cancel after a knee injury in the game against Greenock Morton .

Web links

• Kevin Kyle in the soccerbase.com database
• Kevin Kyle in the database of the Scottish Football Association (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ "Kyle in dramatic search for fitness" ( Memento of the original from May 27, 2009 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 Northern Echo) 
2. ↑ "Scaldin 'Balls: Footy star drops boiling water in lap" (Mirror.co.uk)
3. ^ "Sky Blues sign Scotland's Kyle" (BBC Sport)
4. ^ "Kyle completes Pools loan switch" (BBC Sport)
5. ↑ spfl.co.uk: Kilmarnock snap up Kyle (January 29, 2009) , accessed September 8, 2019
6. ↑ "Kevin Kyle to Join Hearts" (Edinburgh Evening News)
7. ^ Rangers sign Kevin Kyle, Fran Sandaza and Emilson Cribari . bbc.co.uk. Retrieved August 8, 2012.