Played for both: The nomadic career of occasional worldie specialist Craig Gardner

Craig Gardner is heavily associated with both Sunderland and Birmingham City, and he remains a popular figure among both sets of supporters.

Sunderland will see a familiar face in the Birmingham City directors box at St Andrews, with Craig Gardner now the technical director there. 

He is much better known for his playing career, though, much of which was spent at Sunderland. 

Here's a closer look at his career. 

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Craig Gardner came through the academy at Aston Villa, despite being a childhood Birmingham fan, and he signed his first professional contract in January 2005. 

Not quite a year on and he made his debut on Boxing Day coming off the bench for Steven Davis against Everton at Villa Park. 

He scored his first professional goal for the club in a 3-1 win over Middlesbrough and also netted a goal that was a goal of the month contender against Bolton Wanderers.

In August 2007, Gardner signed a new four-year deal with the club. He scored two goals directly from free kicks in two games straight. The first came in a 4-4 draw with Tottenham Hotspur and then the second was a winner against West Ham. 

His performances in the league that season had caught the eye his manager Martin O’Neill and Villa captain Gareth Barry, who said he could be a key player in years to come.

Gardner didn’t feature much during the 2009-10 season due to a groin injury. On the 26th of January 2010, he made the switch to his boyhood club Birmingham City, on a four-year deal. 

He came of the bench for his debut on the 7th of February, in a Midlands derby against Wolverhampton Wanderers. That day, he set up the first of former Sunderland man Kevin Phillips goals in a comeback 2-1 victory. 

Gardner scored his first goal for the club against Everton in March 2010. The following season, despite a 2-1 victory in the League Cup final over Arsenal, Birmingham were relegated back down to the Championship after their two-year stay in the Premier League - Gardner was their top goal scorer in the League that season with eight goals.

🎂 Happy birthday to former #SAFC man, Craig Gardner!

When he hit the ball, it stayed hit 😅 pic.twitter.com/6b8OgeDty8

— Sunderland AFC (@SunderlandAFC) November 25, 2020

The midfielder then signed for Sunderland on a three-year deal, for a fee of around £6 million on the 30th of June 2011. He made his debut in a home defeat to North-East rivals Newcastle, and soon after scored his first goal in a 4-0 win over Stoke City. 

Gardner seemed to go out of favour with Steve Bruce and had been rumoured to be heading for the exit door in the January. However, after being reunited with former boss Martin O’Neil, his Sunderland career was somewhat revitalised. 

Like he would be at Villa, Gardner was deployed at right-back due to an ongoing injury crisis. Sunderland grabbed a shock victory over Manchester City, a 1-0 win against the league leaders and then battered Wigan 4-1.

Gardner remained on Wearside despite rumours of him being unsettled. He was again used at right-back for much of the 2012-13 season and flexed his muscles as a dead ball specialist once again, scoring from a free kick against MK Dons in the League Cup before adding another in a 4-2 home defeat to West Brom, the club who he would go on to play for next. 

After a run of eight games without a win, O’Neill was sacked and replaced with Paolo Di Canio. When Gardner was suspended for Sunderland’s Tyne-Weir derby clash with Newcastle, Di Canio permitted him to go and travel with the away supporters and watch the game from the stands. 

He was seen singing with the Sunderland fans on the Metro journey to Newcastle. In his final season at Sunderland, he featured 26 times in all competitions and scored three goals. 

The best of the three came in a FA Cup fifth-round tie with Southampton, a shot from 20-yards out which found it’s way to the top corner.

He left Sunderland on the expiry of his contract and headed back to the Midlands and joined West Bromwich Albion. 

In his first two seasons at the club, he was quite a prominent figure in the side playing 35 and 34 Premier League matches out of 38 in his first two seasons. 

He then fell out of favour, only making 9 appearances in the 2016/17 season before being loaned out to one of his former sides Birmingham City.

Gardner re-joined Birmingham permanently ahead of the 2017/18 season and became player-coach ahead of the 2019/20 season, joining Pep Clotet’s coaching team.

After Clotet’s sacking on the 8th of July 2020, Gardner, along with Steve Spooner were in interim charge of the club until the end of the season. 

Aitor Karanka was appointed as the Blues boss ahead of the 2020/21 campaign but brought in his own backroom staff, forcing Gardner to leave. 

He joined Sheffield Wednesday to be apart of the coaching staff there under former manager Tony Pulis.

His spell at Sheffield Wednesday was short-lived, though, as Pulis was sacked on the 28th of December. 

He then returned to Birmingham again as part of Lee Bowyer’s coaching staff in January 2021 and was then appointed as technical director in June the same year. 

Birmingham were taken over in 2023 by an American consortium lead by Tom Wagner. The new chairman expressed his gratitude to Gardner saying "without help we would never have completed this transaction. He deserves an enormous amount of credit in helping to shepherd the transaction over the finish line." 

Gardner was also given credit for some of the brilliant transfer business that Birmingham did in the summer, bringing in the likes of Siriki Dembele from Bournemouth, Ethan Laird from Manchester United and Jay Stansfield on loan from Fulham.

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