Deon Burton

Deon Burton

Personal information
Full name	Deon John Burton
Height	5 ft 10 in (1.78 m)
Position(s)	Striker
Team information
Current team	Charlton Athletic
Number	10
‡ National team caps and goals, correct as of 14:50, 02 January 2009 (UTC)

Deon John Burton (born 25 October 1976 in Reading, England) is a Jamaican football striker who currently plays for Charlton Athletic.

Football career

Club

Burton began his professional career with Portsmouth, with whom he made his debut in the 1993–94 league season, playing in two games. Burton would play intermittently for Portsmouth over the next three seasons before a £1m move to Derby County for the 1997–98 season. Burton would again struggle to establish a starting role at Derby, playing intermittently there until 2002–03, when he would again return to Portsmouth for an initial fee of 75k, which eventually rose to £250k as Portsmouth were promoted at the end of the season. Burton stayed shortly at Portsmouth, but, unable to establish a starting role, was loaned to Walsall and Swindon Town, before moving to Brentford for the 2004–05 campaign, helping the club to the League One play-off semi-finals against Sheffield Wednesday as their top scorer. Deon Burton also shares a surname with the lesser know Anthony Burton, who also players as Striker for Old St Mary's F.C.

Rotherham United

In July 2005 he joined Rotherham United on a free transfer. After an impressive first half of the season, scoring 14 goals in just 27 appearances including his career's first hat-trick against Blackpool.

Sheffield Wednesday

Sheffield Wednesday bought Deon Burton from Rotherham United for a fee of £110k. This caused much controversy amongst the Rotherham public, as Burton was alleged to have trained with Sheffield Wednesday before the transfer window opened. He also failed to turn up at the Yorkshire derby between Rotherham and Doncaster Rovers on New Year's Eve. He then told local radio his young children were suffering from a virus which he caught, leading to him missing games and training for the Millers. He scored his first goal for the Owls in March 2006 against QPR after recovering from a minor injury, his first in nine appearances.

He went on to play a crucial part in Sheffield Wednesday's Championship survival and returned to play against his old club Derby County on the final day of the 2005–06 season, captaining the Wednesday side to a 2–0 victory with another former Ram, Marcus Tudgay, scoring the first goal.

His good form for Wednesday led to a recall to the international stage. Named as a standby for the friendlies against Ghana and England, he was eventually called up as a replacement for Watford striker Marlon King who was sent home for a breach of discipline. Burton made a second-half appearance as substitute in the 6–0 defeat to England.

Despite only scoring one goal with four months of the 2006–07 campaign gone, Burton's second half of season form was excellent. He scored twelve more goals, making him the club's joint top scorer for the season, alongside Steve MacLean.

In mid-January 2007, Burton was linked with a move to League Two side MK Dons, but Burton refuted the rumours by saying that he would be signing a new contract.

Deon reached a milestone 100 career goals at club level on Boxing day 2007, scoring a penalty against Burnley at Turf Moor. On the last day of the season against Norwich, with Wednesday needing a win to guarantee survival, Burton cancelled out Darren Huckerby's opening goal with a penalty, before scoring his second, and Wednesday's third, later in the game, which was won 4–1 by Wednesday. These two goals brought Deon's tally for the season to nine goals in all competitions, again making him the club's top scorer for the 2007–08 season. Burton scored his first goal of the 2008-09 season on 25th November 2008, in Wednesday's 0-2 away win at Blackpool.

Charlton Athletic

Burton joined Championship side Charlton Athletic on loan on 27th November 2008 with a view to a permanent move, Wednesday manager Brian Laws citing Burton's poor start to the 2008-09 season for the move as well as not being able to give the player assurances over his long term future at Hillsborough. On the 2 January 2009, Burton was named as a permanent Charlton player, joining the club on a free transfer.

International

Burton made his Jamaican debut on 7 September 1997 in the latter stages of their World Cup qualifying campaign. He finished with four goals from five games, an exploit which won him Jamaica's Sportsman of the Year Award for almost single-handedly getting the country to the 1998 finals. However he failed to score in France.[1] He also appeared in each of Jamaica's games as they finished fourth in the 1998 CONCACAF Gold Cup but he failed to score.[2] He was also in the squad that failed to qualify for the 2002 World cup and was again included on the roster for the 2000 Gold Cup.[3]. He was included in the qualifying squad for the 2003 Gold Cup making substitute appearances[4] but was dropped from the squad after qualification[5]. Deon had to wait 3 years for his next international involvement - against England. More good form for Wednesday meant that he was recalled for a friendly match against Trinidad & Tobago on 27 March 2008. He came on as a second half substitute for Marlon King in a 2–2 draw. This was to be his 50th cap . He kept his place in the squad for the next friendly game against St. Vincent and the Grenadines on 3 June, again coming off the bench for King in the second half, to score his side's 4th goal a minute later and also to cross for Ricardo Gardner to score the 5th and final goal in the 87th minute of a 5–1 victory.

Career statistics

Template:Football player statistics 1 Template:Football player statistics 2 |- |1993-94||rowspan="4"|Portsmouth||rowspan="4"|First Division||2||0||colspan="2"|-||colspan="2"|-||2||0 |- |1994-95||7||2||colspan="2"|-||colspan="2"|-||7||2 |- |1995-96||32||7||1||0||1||0||34||7 |- |1996-97||21||1||colspan="2"|-||2||2||23||3 |- |1996-97||Cardiff City||Third Division||5||2||colspan="2"|-||colspan="2"|-||5||2 |- |1997-98||rowspan="2"|Derby County||rowspan="2"|Premier League||28||3||2||0||1||0||31||3 |- |1998-99||21||9||5||3||1||0||27||12 |- |1998-99||Barnsley||First Division||3||0||colspan="2"|-||colspan="2"|-||3||0 |- |1999-00||rowspan="3"|Derby County||rowspan="3"|Premier League||19||4||1||0||1||0||21||4 |- |2000-01||32||5||2||0||3||1||37||6 |- |2001-02||17||1||colspan="2"|-||2||2||19||3 |- |2001-02||Stoke City||Second Division||15||4||colspan="2"|-||colspan="2"|-||15||4 |- |2002-03||Portsmouth||First Division||15||4||1||0||colspan="2"|-||16||4 |- |2002-03||Derby County||First Division||7||3||colspan="2"|-||colspan="2"|-||7||3 |- |2003-04||Portsmouth||Premier League||1||0||1||0||colspan="2"|-||2||0 |- |2003-04||Walsall||First Division||3||0||colspan="2"|-||1||0||4||0 |- |2003-04||Swindon Town||Second Division||4||1||colspan="2"|-||colspan="2"|-||4||1 |- |2004-05||Brentford||League One||42||10||7||0||1||0||50||10 |- |2005-06||Rotherham United||League One||24||12||1||1||2||1||27||14 |- |2005-06||rowspan="4"|Sheffield Wednesday||rowspan="4"|Championship||17||4||colspan="2"|-||colspan="2"|-||17||4 |- |2006-07||42||13||2||0||colspan="2"|-||44||13 |- |2007-08||40||7||2||0||3||2||45||9 |- |2008-09|||||1||||||||||| Template:Football player statistics 3397||92||25||4||18||8||440||104 Template:Football player statistics 5397||92||25||4||18||8||440||104 |}

References

• Deon Burton player profile at swfc.co.uk
• Deon Burton at Soccerbase
• Deon Burton at ESPN FC