Danny Collins

Early career

He began his career in the Cymru Alliance with local sides Mold Alexandra and Buckley Town. After having trials with Wrexham and Tranmere Rovers, he signed for Chester City in December 2001, who were playing in the Conference. Before turning professional, Collins played cricket for Wales Minor Counties during the football close season. In the 1999 season, he played two matches, taking two wickets at an average of 37.50 and scoring 14 runs at an average of 7.00.

Chester City

Collins made his debut for Chester in a 3–1 defeat against Northwich Victoria on boxing day 2001. In just under three years he made over 70 appearances for Chester. It was after a successful spell on loan at Vauxhall Motors that his career started to take off, having been converted from an unconvincing forward into a composed central defender. His time at Vauxhalls included helping them surprisingly knock Queens Park Rangers out of the FA Cup in November 2002. The following season saw Collins miss just one game as Chester won the Football Conference title and returned to the Football League after a four-year absence. Although Chester had a mixed start to the 2004–05 season, Collins continued to impress and a stoppage time goal against Macclesfield Town gave Chester their first win of the season on 4 September 2004.

Sunderland

A month later he joined Sunderland for £140,000 amid interest from other clubs including Sheffield United whose manager Neil Warnock hit…

Despite being born in England, Collins has represented Wales at international level. He made his debut on 9 February 2005 during a 2–0 win over Hungary in the first match of John Toshack's second spell as Wales' manager. His last cap came on 22 August 2007 during a 1–0 friendly win over Bulgaria. Two months after the match, Collins withdrew from the Wales squad to face Germany and Slovakia in the qualifying round of UEFA Euro 2008. Having previously fallen out with Toshack over being left on the bench during a friendly match with Paraguay in March 2006, Following the resignation of Toshack and the appointment of Brian Flynn as Wales caretaker manager, Collins, who had not been called up since 2007, was selected in the Wales squad for the UEFA Euro 2012 qualifying matches in October 2010. His first call-up as a Forest player was in the squad to face Belgium and Serbia in the 2014 FIFA World Cup qualifiers. However, Collins turned the call-up down and said, "Playing for Wales has always meant a great deal, it's a massive honour to play for your country, but at my age I feel I would be better served to stay with Forest to train and prepare for the demanding fixtures in the Championship. I'm grateful to Chris [Coleman] for considering me but I feel it's important I focus on Forest now."

International

Source:

Chester City

Football Conference: 2003–04 Sunderland

Football League Championship: 2004–05, 2006–07 Stoke City

FA Cup runner-up: 2010–11 Individual

North East Player of the Year: 2009