Stokes, Anthony – Misc Articles

Back in December 2007, when Anthony Stokes was playing for Sunderland, the callow striker's fondness for The Glass Spider — a popular Mackem night spot — irked Roy Keane. "Anthony could be a top player or he could be playing non-League in five years," Keane railed. Three years on, a rejuvenated Stokes' football future looks far more secure.

Now 22, Stokes is flourishing in the green and white hoops of Celtic. A typically adroit finish against Aberdeen in midweek provided his eighth goal in six games, taking the Dubliner's tally for the season to 17 in all competitions. Such impressive form has not impressed Giovanni Trapattoni, who named the Celtic hit man in the 29-man squad for Ireland's Carling Nations Cup opener against Wales at the Aviva Stadium on Tuesday night, but then left him off the revised squad. Stokes has so far struggled to break into the Ireland set-up under the Italian's regime, much to the striker's frustration. "It's been a while since I've been picked, but I still really want to play for my country," the tall, athletic former Terenure College student says.

Stokes, who won his three international caps to date during Steve Staunton's ill-fated tenure, has not featured in an Ireland shirt since 2007. "I was in a lot of the squads when [Trapattoni] came in.

Even when I wasn't playing for Sunderland at the time, I was there or thereabouts. But a lot of the time when I was in the squad, other players would be drafted in who were on standby and they would play ahead of me."

Speaking from Celtic's labyrinthine Lennoxtown training complex at the foothills of the bucolic Campsie hills, a half an hour's drive and a world away from the bustle of Glasgow city centre, Stokes is relaxed about his international prospects but would clearly relish a run in the Ireland team: "I don't know what the situation is to be honest, but if I get the chance I want to take it. Until then, all I can do is concentrate on my form for my club."

Concentration has never been Stokes' strongest suit — while his senior career got off to a blistering start when he scored 14 goals in 16 games on loan at Falkirk from Arsenal, his subsequent spell at Sunderland was marked by inconsistency. But the striker has settled well into life at Celtic Park, following his £1.2 million move from SPL rivals Hibernian in August. "I hit a spot a few months back where I was struggling to get into the team, but now that I've got myself back in and back scoring goals, everything is looking up."

His almost telepathic relationship with another summer arrival, target man Gary Hooper, has been a revelation at Celtic Park this season, taking the Hoops to the top of the SPL and Stokes to third in the scorers' chart (behind ex-Rangers man Kenny Miller and another young Dubliner, Conor Sammon, who left Kilmarnock for Wigan Athletic on deadline day last week).

With Stokes now displaying all the confidence and verve of a top player, it is easy to forget how close the striker came to fulfilling the other, doom-laden, half of Roy Keane's prophecy. Barely 18 months ago, the rangy Dubliner seemed more likely to figure in a kick and run contest in the Conference than a senior international at the Aviva. Languishing in Sunderland's reserves following a couple of uninspired loan moves to the Championship, Stokes was drifting, struggling to re-ignite the promise that saw him break into Arsenal's reserves at just 15, having joined the Gunners from Shelbourne.

Stokes sees the move to Hibernian, which reunited him with former Falkirk boss John Hughes, as a pivotal moment in his career. He absorbed a huge cut in wages to join the Easter Road outfit in 2009. "I knew going to Hibs that I had to start my career over again because things had gone badly towards the end of my time at Sunderland. Going to Hibs, I just wanted to get focused on my football and back playing every week. That was the main thing. I wasn't thinking of where I was going."

Celtic coveted Stokes back at the start of 2007. He chose to go to Sunderland instead — "the Keane thing was a big factor" — but when Hoops manager Neil Lennon came knocking at the start of this season the decision was a no-brainer: "As soon as I knew they were interested I wanted to come. It was as simple as that."

If leaving Hibs for Celtic was easy, swapping life in genteel Edinburgh for the goldfish bowl that is Glasgow has been somewhat less straightforward. Unlike most of his team-mates, Stokes does not live in the so-called City of Love, commuting instead from his home on the western edge of Edinburgh — although even there the tensions that swirl around Scottish football, and the Old Firm in particular, are hard to avoid.

Back in October, a mob of around 15 Rangers supporters surrounded Stokes' house after an Old Firm game. The Celt was not in but his parents, John and Joan, were trapped inside while the gang sang sectarian songs, shouted threats and threw a wheelie bin at his living room window.

Keen to play down the incident, Stokes insists that he has had no problems since: "That was just a one-off thing. It was just after the first Rangers game I played in. A few people came around to the house but that was it really. Since then I've had no bother whatsoever."

It is difficult to imagine such a sanguine reaction from the friendly, insouciant Anthony Stokes I first met in Edinburgh 12 months ago. Now he cuts an altogether more circumspect character. Where once he sat on the edge of a table chatting garrulously, now he sits bolt upright, arms folded across his chest for the entire interview. While he still speaks freely, his responses are more guarded than they once were.

It is difficult to gauge whether Stokes has genuinely matured or if the media training at Celtic Park is simply that bit keener. However, the striker's ability to grab the wrong headlines has not completely left the building, as an ill-advised taxi ride after the Celtic Christmas party proved.

"We were down in London for our Christmas team night out," Stokes explains. "I hadn't been feeling well for about two weeks before that. We had a good day or two on it and there was another day to come. I just couldn't take any more so I decided to come home."

The only problem was that Britain was in the grip of the coldest spell in 30 years. With all flights and trains north cancelled, Stokes decided to get a cab home, a 374-mile journey that set him back £600 and sent Scottish red top journalists caterwauling. "There were probably a few too many drinks had," Stokes laughs. "Not the best idea I've ever had, but I was delighted to get back to my bed."

Thankfully for Celtic, and for Stokes, this season his performances on the pitch have received far more attention than any off-field antics. The Bhoys are proving remarkably buoyant in Lennon's first full season in charge. Five points clear of arch-rivals Rangers at the summit of the SPL and in the League Cup final, they are unbeaten in 13 games going into today's Scottish Cup Old Firm clash.

While a Cup victory would be welcomed, Celtic's season will be regarded as a failure unless they regain the league title from an impecunious Rangers who, despite their dire financial straits, could still overhaul the Hoops. For Stokes a few more goals and a first piece of silverware would round off a satisfying debut season.

Growing up in Templeogue, there was only one team in the Stokes household. "I never really supported a team in the Premiership. It has always been Celtic. All my family and most of my friends are fans," he says.

No prizes for guessing his footballing hero. "Larsson," he exclaims without a moment's hesitation.

"I liked Arsenal because of Bergkamp, but Celtic were my main club and it has to be (Henrik) Larsson. When you're that age, to see someone scoring so many goals, they're always going to be your idol.'

Having turned his own career around, perhaps Stokes might one day emulate the Celtic Park legend? "If I can do half, even a tenth, of what Larsson did, I'll be doing alright"

Nov 13 2011 Exclusive by Marion Scott and Lauren Crooks, Sunday Mail

CELTIC striker Anthony Stokes is battling to cope with emotional turmoil after his aunt revealed that she is actually his mother.

The £1million Irish star's family were rocked when Ann Byrne told how she gave up her son at the age of three to her sister.

And yesterday the man 23-year-old Stokes describes as his dad admitted the revelations had caused heartbreak in the family.

Ann, 50, told how she handed her son – christened Anthony Byrne – to her sister Joan and her husband John Stokes in 1991 when he was three because she was struggling to cope.

Speaking about her gut -wrenching decision, Ann, of Dublin, said: "You have to love a child to do it. You have to think about the child, and what's best for them.

"That's why nothing ever really bothers me because I know I did it for the right reasons.

"I understand why I did it and so does Anthony, and that's all that matters. We have a good relationship and he has always known he was adopted by my sister and her husband. It was never hidden.'

"John and Joan have been so good to my family. I never would have given him to anyone else."

She added: "I often think of other mums who have given their kids up – it's not one bit easy for anyone.

"It was so heartbreaking for me, it broke my heart, but what can you do? I can't change it now.
ann byrne anthony stokes Image 1

"He was a lively little boy and I had great help from my sister. She lived next door for a while so I'd only have to call her and she'd help me.

"You have to do your best for the kids and that's why I'm OK because I know he is too. He is doing really well and the kids all get on."

Anthony was Ann's third child and she revealed he has two full biological siblings. Her oldest child Geraldine was born in September 1980 in Dublin and Anthony's older brother Michael was born in 1985.

But yesterday Stokes's adoptive dad John, who is really his uncle, admitted: "It has caused a lot of trouble at home and caused a lot of problems for my own family.

"Some of them found out about it secondhand and that's not the way we would have wanted them to find out."

A source said: "The family wanted to keep things within the circle. But Anthony loves them all and still regards John as his dad.

"His sister has been to Scotland a few times to watch him play."

John has represented Anthony as his agent but hit the headlines when he claimed the star was ready to quit the club after an Old Firm game.
anthony stokes Image 3

He put up a 40ft banner on his Dublin pub, The Players' Lounge, opposing the visit of the Queen to Ireland earlier this year.

And in May he was arrested by police investigating a turf war between Real IRA terrorists and crime gangs and has denied charges of assault, threats and possession of stun guns.

Anthony has publicly praised John and Joan when he talked about going on trial at Arsenal at a crucial time in his career.

He said: "I don't think I'd have stuck it out had they not been with me. If my mum and dad had still been in Dublin there's every chance I'd have been on the first flight home."

In an another interview he said of John: "My dad was massive for me. When I was younger he would really push me.

"I was doing quite well at a young age but he realised the standard in England was on a different level."

Ann even told how people have commented on the physical resemblance between Anthony and John, who do not share a biological link.

Recalling the handover to Joan, she said: "When I gave Anthony to her, she wanted to do it properly so they legally adopted him and gave him their surname.

"In those days you just had to sign the papers and after that I never heard another thing about it. The first three years were very hard.

"It broke my heart but I suppose things were made easier for me because I could see how happy he was. I only had to look at him to see he was OK.

"Anthony has always known, since the age of two, from the time the adoption process got under way. You should never tell the kids lies, and I told them to tell him straight from the start who he is.

"We stayed close but I couldn't take him back years later and change it.

"He's great at what he does. I'm proud of him. Everyone around here knows I had him and I was always afraid that someone would make the adoption public someday without us knowing.

"But I've often been dying for people to know what I go through. I'm often sitting on a bus when I see someone carrying a baby and I think about it then. It was very, very hard back then."

She added: "We've often sat together and I'd say: 'Is there anything you want to ask me?' and he'd say: 'No, I know you did nothing wrong… I've no problem with anything'."

"I often wondered why he never asks me anything but I think that's because there were no secrets.

"People think he owes me a living but he definitely doesn't. He's doing his own thing and I'm happy for him."

Stokes was one of the hottest prospects in Irish football when he joined Arsenal as a teenager in 2005.

He later went to Falkirk and Hibs before signing for Celtic in a £1million deal last year.

He was the club's joint top scorer last season with 20 goals in 42 games.

Stokes and Celtic declined to comment last night.

Anthony Stokes

Edinburgh Evening News

Published on Monday 21 November 2011 12:00

CELTIC star Anthony Stokes and his heavily pregnant girlfriend are set to quit their West Lothian home after a gang of yobs laid siege to the luxury property at the weekend.

The gang smashed a window of their £400,000 Broxburn home in the early hours of Saturday morning.

Debbie Lawlor, 24, is understood to have been alone in the house while Stokes, 23, was in Inverness ahead of the Parkhead side’s clash with Caley Thistle.

Neighbours of the couple said they have not returned home since the attack and are looking to move out.

The attack came after a mob of 15 youths laid siege to the property and hurled a wheelie bin at a window after the Old Firm clash in October 2010. Stokes was also away during that incident when a gang shouted death threats and sang sectarian songs, but his parents were trapped inside.

Today one neighbour, who asked not to be named, said: “We heard shouting between 2am and 3am in the morning. When we came down on Saturday morning the window was smashed.

“Debbie said she was in the house. It’s the last thing you need in her condition.

“Anthony was in Inverness and it must worry him to hear about this nonsense going on when he is away. They headed through to Glasgow on Saturday night and we haven’t seen them since.”

Neighbour Jim Armstrong, 51, said he spoke to Debbie on Saturday afternoon and boarded up the window for her.

He said: “She’s seven or eight months pregnant. If she was in when it happened she must have had a bit of a fright.

“I think she was a wee bit upset. I know Anthony phoned her to go to Glasgow after it.

“Whoever did it obviously targeted the house, because my van was sitting there and they haven’t touched it. I think it’s a Rangers-Celtic thing. It’s a piece of nonsense. He signs tops for the kids around here and things like that. It’s a shame because I think they want to move now. They are fantastic neighbours.”

Last year former Hibs ace Stokes, who moved to Celtic in 2010, vowed to stand up to bigots after the first attack.

However, he is thought to want to leave the rented house after the latest incident.

A source said: “They are looking to get out of the area now. Debbie is due early next year and so they will have a kid to think about too.”

They added: “They are great neighbours and it is disgraceful that they have to put up with this. The people who did this are idiots.”

Despite the attack Debbie reassured friends on Twitter she was “fine” after the attack.

She wrote: “Night of good company, good food and Twilight [the film] ahead.”

Police have confirmed they are investigating the incident at the weekend.

A spokesman for Celtic added: “It’s very concerning on the back of last year’s events. We hope the police will deal with is seriously and Anthony and his family will receive all the support the club can offer.”

Scotland on Sunday

By TOM ENGLISH
Published on Sunday 2 December 2012 00:00

ALL of his life, Anthony Stokes has been mixing in the sort of company that would stun you into silence. In his circle of friends in Dublin the Celtic striker has some of the city’s most notorious criminals, some of whom are, or were, members of the Real IRA, the terrorism splinter group that oppose the peace process in Northern Ireland and who see anybody who has turned away from violence as some kind of sell-out or “Judas”, as one of Stokes’ most hardcore mates put it a while back.

That mate was Alan Ryan, who is now dead. As he walked through the streets of north Dublin on 3 September, Ryan was shot in the body, the legs and the head by a masked gunman. Ryan was the Real IRA’s leader in Dublin, a person who had done four years in prison for his association with terrorism. He was one of the most feared crime overlords in the Irish capital, believed to be responsible for ordering the death of three of his enemies in an ongoing drugs war. Earlier this year he personally used a hacksaw to cut off the fingers of a criminal who had refused to pay him protection money. Five months before he met his end, somebody had tried to kill Ryan while he sat in the pub owned by Stokes’ father, John.

On the day of his funeral, Stokes tweeted about his mate. “Thinking of you Alan,” he said. The funeral became a circus with men in balaclavas and full paramilitary regalia complete with a volley of gunshots as his coffin left his home on the north of the city. Police officers had the place surrounded. The media were there in big numbers. Ryan was a high-profile gangster and his death was national news in Ireland.

A few weeks back, Stokes went to Dublin to attend a fundraiser for Ryan, an event that police had under surveillance given some of the people that went through the door that night. Last weekend, a female reporter in Ireland, who has bravely covered the Ryan story for some time, wrote about the fundraiser and the fact that Stokes attended it. During the week she received two death threats after some of Ryan’s sympathisers put her mobile phone number and other personal details on a website set up as a memorial to Ryan.The threat was not idle. In 1996, the fearless Sunday Independent crime reporter Veronica Guerin was shot dead in her car by a crime gang, an event that scandalised the nation and made it aware, too late, that the gangland figures in Dublin were lawless beyond anything anybody ever dared to imagine. So, when those death threats were issued last week, a Garda patrol car with armed detectives was immediately placed outside the journalist’s home.

On Friday, Celtic said they take a very dim view of Stokes’ attendance at the fundraiser and that they will deal with it internally.

Officially, they would say no more about it but we can take it as fact that the striker’s activities have gone down badly at Celtic Park. By rights, they should sack him. He has disgraced his club.

Some might say that is harsh, given that one glance at Stokes’ twitter feed shows an exchange with a bloke who says he hopes the UVF put a bullet in the footballer’s head sometime soon. But this is the world Stokes lives in and this is the treatment – utterly abhorrent and demanding of police intervention – that he has opened himself up to. Stokes’ abuser should be found and put away but what the hell was the player doing at the fundraiser in the first place?

His supporters would, no doubt, argue that he was just honouring the memory of somebody he has known since he was a kid, that it doesn’t follow that he supported Ryan in his vermin deeds and that a friend is a friend.

It’s true that Stokes was born into this, that connections to people in the underworld were part of his natural life since before he even knew how to spell the word and that it must be hard to extricate yourself from that life.

But has he even tried?

There is no evidence in anything that he has ever said that points to an awareness of a need to move on from these people.

There is a feeling that Lennon would like to say a whole lot more about this but feels, for various reasons, that he cannot. At least not yet.

There is no question but that the Celtic manager will be horrified to hear about the death threats issued to the journalist given that Lennon himself has, sadly, suffered in a similar way.

The club’s reluctance to speak out publicly should not be taken as an endorsement of Stokes but, to the watching public, it might well look that way and nobody could be criticised for thinking that Celtic have not reacted as they should have.

Again, we say: Not yet. There is a hope that they will have plenty to say in time.

You can contextualise it all you like, you can look into Stokes’ family upbringing and say: ‘Look, he never stood a chance.’

But the fact remains that a Celtic player was fraternising with crime bosses suspected of multiple murders who also had well-known links to terrorism and that the journalist who wrote about it first has been targeted by these people and last week was being protected by armed detectives camped outside her house. That’s the beginning, the end and the in-between of this saga.

Stokes has been injured all season but the damage to his ankle is as nothing compared to the damage to his reputation.

Anthony Stokes ‘doesn’t care’ what Lennon thinks
The Scotsman

By ANDREW SMITH
Published on Saturday 16 March 2013 00:00

THE subject of falling foul of his manager during a troubled season for Anthony Stokes might have been expected to elicit either contrition or evasion from the Celtic striker.

The 24-year-old simply isn’t that type, however. In December, he was accused of “tarnishing” the club by Neil Lennon through his appearance at a Dublin fundraiser in honour of childhood acquaintance and murdered leading Real IRA figure Alan Ryan. That same month, there were questions raised over the attitude and professionalism of Stokes during his rehabilitation following an ankle operation that cost him the first six months of this campaign.

Yet asked if it hurt when Lennon criticised him, Stokes offered candidly: “No, not really. Listen, I don’t really care what the gaffer thinks of me personally. It would be nice to get on with him – and I think I have a good relationship with him. But I only really care about how I do on the pitch for him. That’s where I should be judged, on the pitch.

“I get on reasonably well with him. We’re not best mates but I don’t think he hates me either. It’s a normal player-manager relationship. I don’t care what other people think about me. Since I’ve been in the SPL I’ve always managed to score around 20 goals a season. If I’m playing every week I can hit 25 to 30. Unfortunately in the last couple of years I haven’t played every week. As a striker, I should be judged purely on goals and assists.”

A judgment will be made about the Irishman in the next couple of months that will shape his entire future. When the player signed from Hibernian for £800,000, he agreed a four-year contract, the final year of which came in the form of an option that Celtic alone can decide whether to exercise or not.

Stokes, who has harvested 44 goals from 90 appearances – all the more impressive considering only 63 of these were starts – appears philosophical about his situation. He would have ample justification for feeling that, regardless of any off-field issues, he has proved too valuable to simply discard.

“I’d like to think I’ll be here next season and for the foreseeable future,” Stokes said. “But we’ll have to play it by ear and wait to see what happens. There have been brief conversations about a contract but we haven’t gone into details yet. I hope it will be sorted before the end of the season. It would hurt to leave here [as it’s my boyhood club]. It would sting for a while but it’s football. It happens with managers and players every week. You move on but I hope that’s not the case with me here. The club have the one-year option but I’d rather sign a contract for longer. Any footballer will tell you it’s nice to have a bit of security and feel settled.”

Stokes has been settling in to regular first-team action again since his return to full fitness in the middle of January. With mixed results, he feels, having bagged four goals from 11 appearances. “When I look back on this season, I’ll see it as a difficult one no matter how many goals I score between now and the end. Purely because of the injury,” he said. “I was happy with my form in the first couple of games back but I need to lift it again now. If I’m not scoring goals I don’t think I’m doing my job.”

Meanwhile, Craig Brown, manager of today’s opponents, Aberdeen, does not believe his retirement announcement this week will have any impact on his players during their final attempts to make the top six of the SPL.

Brown revealed on Thursday that he would step down as Dons manager at the end of the season but there remain eight games left in the SPL, with the next three crucial.

Aberdeen travel to Celtic Park today in ninth place in the SPL with games against Hearts and Dundee United to follow. But Brown does not feel the certainty regarding his situation will have any effect. “I don’t think it will make the slightest difference,” he said. “Players are very resilient. Obviously they want to play for a manager they are pleased to play for.

“But it’s their job to play football and if there’s no manager or if [Jose] Mourinho came in or if Sir Alex [Ferguson] came back, they would hopefully be as enthusiastic for us as they would be for them.

“Over the years I’m not going to deny Sir Alex might make a difference, I’m sure he would. But in the immediate term there will be no difference in attitude.”