Kieran Richardson

Early career

Richardson was born in Greenwich, London and was schooled at the private and non-selective Riverston School in Lee, London. Growing up he would watch Arsenal with his father Clyde who was a season ticket holder. He began playing football at Parkwood Primary School and his talent was very apparent at this young age, he was made captain of his school team and was invited to train with Arsenal. He then moved to West Ham United where he would begin training professionally. However, before he made his debut for the Londoners, he was signed by Manchester United in 2001.

Manchester United

During his first season at Manchester United, Richardson established his place as a regular on United's reserve team. He was given squad number 42 for the first team, but he failed to make his debut with them. He made his first appearance for Manchester United on 23 October 2002 when coming on as a late substitute in a match against Olympiacos in the UEFA Champions League. He then scored his first goal for United in the League Cup on 5 November 2002 against Leicester City. Richardson enjoyed his first breakthrough during the 2002–03 season, appearing nine times and scoring a goal for the first team. He also played a role in Manchester United's youth team's win of the 2003 FA Youth Cup. At the start of 2003–04, he was given squad number 23 and only appeared three times, all of them in League Cup and FA Cup. During 2004–05, he started to become more involved with the…

Club

International

Scores and results list England's goal tally first, score column indicates score after each Richardson goal.

During his stay at West Brom, he won his first cap for the England under-21 team on 8 February 2005 in a friendly match against the Netherlands. After a series of convincing performances for West Brom, he won a late call-up for England's trip to the United States at the end of 2004–05. He started the match against the United States and scored twice on his England debut, including one directly from a free kick. He earned praise from England manager Sven-Göran Eriksson, who described Richardson's debut as "fantastic". He also appeared as a substitute on England's second match in the United States against Colombia. After earning senior caps, Richardson also returned to the under-21 squad, playing in both legs of the 2006 UEFA European Under-21 Championship qualification play-off against France, which they lost 3–2 on aggregate. The decisive goal came in the 85th minute of the second leg, when Richardson brought down Lassana Diarra in the box and the resulting penalty was converted. He then made two further substitute appearances during England's World Cup qualifiers against Wales in Cardiff and Austria at Old Trafford. The latter was his home England debut. However, he was not selected by Sven-Göran Eriksson in England's 2006 World Cup squad. In 2006–07, he continued to be selected by newly-appointed England manager Steve McClaren and made several substitute appearances. He went on to make further appearances for the England U21 squad, for whom he was eligible to play until the…

Richardson is married to Natalie with whom he has two daughters, and who was the catalyst for him becoming a born again Christian. In 2007, he said: "I just want to praise Jesus Christ and go to heaven. That's all I care about".