Liverpool striker Craig Bellamy doing the Ayatollah
CRAIG Bellamy is planning to play for both Liverpool and former side Cardiff City in the Carling Cup final.
Boyhood Liverpool fan Bellamy scored the Reds’ third in a 3-2 semi final victory over Manchester City to set up a final showdown against his other favourite team, Cardiff City.
The sides will meet at Wembley in a game that will split Welsh football fans as it pits the most popular club in Wales against the best supported team from the country.
However 32-year-old Bellamy, a lifelong supporter of both clubs, intends to avoid the heartache of having to put his loyalty to one side above the other by playing 45 minutes for each team in the February showpiece.
Ten clubman Bellamy said it would be a massive honour to play for and against the Merseyside giants under the famous arch: “I’m still a bit overawed. At every club I’ve played for, apart from Celtic which I knew a bit about, I’ve bought a DVD of their history so I knew a bit about them. What they stood for. But I know this history of this club already, from Shankly to Paisley. To have an opportunity to make my mark here means so much. It’s one I am going to take.
“I’ve grown up with Kenny Dalglish, to play for him is a massive honour. To every Liverpool fan, Kenny is probably the best player ever to pull on the red shirt so that speaks for itself. He was the first player-manager to do the double.”
The former Wales captain, who collected every Liverpool kit from the yellow Littlewoods Cup shirt of 1985 to the FA Cup-winning kit of 1992, added: “For me, the players they’ve signed this summer, there has been a lot of British which takes me back to when I started watching Liverpool. It looks so familiar to me and to be part of it is such a huge honour.”
But Beallamy said come half time and the change of ends he will be wearing his City shirt with pride: “I’m thrilled to be coming back home to Cardiff and am excited at the prospect of wearing the shirt and playing for the club I’ve supported since I was a boy.
“I’ll be working hard with my new team-mates to bring success to the club and look forward to the second half on Sunday.
“It had been my dream to play my part in taking my hometown club to the Premier League, which would be fantastic for the football club, the city of Cardiff and Wales,” added Bellamy, who blamed his dad taking him to see a 4-1 victory over Newport County in 1987 at Ninian Park for years of ‘misery’ supporting the Bluebirds.
WNN’s Cardiff City pundit Peter Zois said of Bellamy’s unusual arrangement for the final: “It’s a game of two halves.”
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