Frank Lampard
Personal information
Full name	Frank James Lampard, Jr.
Date of birth	20 June 1978 (1978-06-20) (age 30)
Place of birth	Romford, London, England
Height	1.83 m (6 ft 0 in)
Playing position	Midfielder
Club information
Current club	Chelsea
Number	8
Youth clubs
1994–1995	West Ham United
Senior clubs1
Years	Club	App (Gls)*
1994–2001 1995–1996 2001–	West Ham United → Swansea City (loan) Chelsea	148 (23) 011 0(1) 254 (73)
National team2
1997–2000 1998 1999–	England U21 England B England	016 0(8) 001 0(0) 064 (14)
1 Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only and correct as of 13 September 2008. 2 National team caps and goals correct as of 11 September 2008. * Appearances (Goals)

Frank James Lampard, Jr. (born 20 June 1978 in Romford, London) is an English football midfielder currently playing for Premier League club Chelsea and the England national team. He is the club's active scoring leader with 115 goals, the highest ever for a Chelsea midfielder. He is also the highest goal scorer in the Premier League for a midfielder.

Biography

Frank Lampard was born into a footballing family. He is the son of Frank Lampard, Sr., a former England fullback and two-time FA Cup winner with West Ham United His mother, Pat, died of pneumonia on 24 April 2008, and his goal celebration currently consists of pointing to the sky and looking upwards as a tribute.

His uncle is Portsmouth coach Harry Redknapp, and his cousin, Jamie Redknapp, spent twelve seasons with Liverpool and earned seventeen caps for England before retiring in 2005.

Lampard was educated at Brentwood School, an independent school in Essex, where he was a classmate of television personality Jodie Marsh. He gained an A* in his Latin GCSE.^[1]

Club career

West Ham United

Lampard joined West Ham, where his father was the assistant coach, as an apprentice in July 1994 as part of their youth system, and signed his professional forms a year later. He was loaned to Division Two team Swansea City in October 1995, and debuted in a 2-0 win over Bradford City. Lampard made nine league appearances for Swansea before returning to West Ham in January 1996, with whom he played his first match at the end of the month against Coventry City F.C., and spent the remainder of the season as a reserve.

The next year, a broken leg suffered in a March game against Aston Villa prematurely put an end to Lampard's 1996-97 season after thirteen appearances. He had to wait until the '97-98 campaign to score his first goal for West Ham, which came in a road victory over Barnsley F.C. He became a starter in 1998-99 and appeared in every match as West Ham finished fifth in the Premiership standings.

Following the sale of teammate and friend Rio Ferdinand to Leeds United after the 2000-01 season, combined with the departures of his father and Redknapp, Lampard followed suit and left West Ham, but chose to stay home in London by joining Chelsea for an £11 million fee.^[2]

Chelsea

Lampard's Premiership debut with Chelsea came on August 19, 2001 in a 1-1 draw with Newcastle United, while his first red card came in a match against Tottenham Hotspur on September 16, and he scored a total of seven goals in all competitions. He netted the match-winner in Chelsea's 2002-03 season opener against Charlton Athletic, and scored his first European goal in a UEFA Cup loss to Viking FK. Lampard appeared in all of Chelsea's league matches and finished with a one-goal improvement over the 2001-02 season.

Lampard warming up for Chelsea.

The next season, Lampard was selected as the Barclays Player of the Month in September 2003, and the PFA Fans' Player of the Month in October. He scored in double figures in league goals (ten) for the first time in his career, in addition to four in fourteen Champions League matches as Chelsea advanced to the quarterfinals.

Lampard played in all thirty-eight Premiership matches for the third consecutive season in 2004-05. He finished with thirteen goals (nineteen in all competitions), in addition to leading the league in assists with sixteen.^[3] He won the first major trophy of his career as Chelsea bagged their first Premiership title in fifty years, by a twelve-point margin. Though Chelsea were eliminated in the Champions League semifinals by league rivals Liverpool, they took home the Football League Cup, in which Lampard scored twice in six matches. He himself landed his first personal award by being named the FWA Footballer of the Year.^[4]

He netted a career-high sixteen league goals in 2005-06, which marked an increase for the fifth straight season, but his team record of consecutive Premiership appearances ended at 164 (five better than previous record holder David James) on December 28, 2005, when he sat out a match against Manchester City due to illness.^[5] The streak began on October 13, 2001, during his first season with the club.

In September 2005, Lampard was selected as a member of the inaugural FIFPro World XI.^[6] He finished as runner-up to Ronaldinho for both the Ballon d'Or and FIFA World Player of the Year awards.^[7][8]

Lampard in 2007.

Due to a back injury sustained by John Terry, Lampard spent much of the 2006-07 campaign as team captain in his absence. Though he enjoyed a streak of seven goals in eight games, while passing Dennis Wise for most goals ever scored by a Chelsea midfielder in a 3-2 win over Everton F.C. on December 17,^[9] his Premiership offense in a Chelsea uniform dipped for the first time, as he finished with five fewer goals than the previous season. Lampard nonetheless finished with 21 scores in all competitions, including a career-high six FA Cup goals; he had scored seven Cup goals in his first eleven seasons combined. Two helped Chelsea to a quarterfinal draw with Tottenham Hotspur after having trailed 3-1, which earned him the FA Cup’s player-of-the-round award.^[10] He then scored his first Chelsea hat-trick in their third-round tie against Macclesfield Town on January 6, 2007. In a postmatch interview following Chelsea's FA Cup Final victory over Manchester United, Lampard said he wanted to stay at the club "forever."^[11]

Lampard suffered through an injury-riddled 2007-08 campaign and played in only 24 matches, which represented his fewest since 1996-97 and ended a ten-year streak of at least thirty Premiership appearances per season. On February 16, 2008, Lampard became the eighth Chelsea player to score one hundred goals in a 3-1 FA Cup fifth-round win over Huddersfield Town^[12]. After the final whistle, Lampard removed his jersey and flashed a T-shirt to the Chelsea fans with "100 Not Out, They Are All For You, Thanks" printed across the front. [1] He scored four goals in a 6-1 rout of Derby County on March 12.

On April 30, Lampard, grieving the loss of his mother a week earlier, decided to play in the second leg of Chelsea's Champions League semifinal against Liverpool, who were eliminated on 4-3 aggregate due to a penalty he in the first period of extra time. In the final against Manchester United, he tied the score in the 45th minute and the match ended at 1-1 after extra time. Chelsea lost 6-5 in the penalty shoot-out after Terry slipped on the pitch surface and shot wide right.

On August 13, 2008, Lampard signed a new 5-year, £39.2 million contract with Chelsea, making him the highest-paid Premiership player.^[13] As of September 2008, he is the 15th highest scorer in the history of the Premier League.^[14] He started the 2008-09 season strongly, scoring five goals in his first 10 matches, and putting in commanding performances in consecutive 2-0 victories against Stoke and Aston Villa.

International career

Lampard was first spotted by England U-21 manager Peter Taylor, and his U-21 debut came on November 13, 1997 in a match against Greece. He played for the U-21s from November 1997 to June 2000, and scored nine goals, a mark bettered only by Alan Shearer and Francis Jeffers with thirteen apiece.

Lampard earned his first cap for England on October 10, 1999 in a 2-1 friendly win over Belgium, and scored his first goal on August 20, 2003 in a 3-1 defeat of Croatia, which England won 3-1. He was bypassed for Euro 2000 and the 2002 World Cup finals, and had to wait until Euro 2004 to participate in his first international competition. England reached the quarterfinals with Lampard netting three goals in four matches, and he was named in the team of the tournament by UEFA.^[15] He became a regular in the squad following the retirement of Paul Scholes.

Though Lampard played every minute of England's 2006 World Cup matches, he went scoreless despite twenty four goal scoring attempts (including 10 shots on goal) as England were eliminated in the quarterfinals by Portugal on penalties.^[16] He was booed by England supporters while coming on as a second-half substitute during England’s Euro 2008 qualifying match against Estonia on 13 October 2007,^[17] and finished with one goal (a 3-2 loss to Croatia on November 21) as England failed to qualify for the tournament.

Personal life

Lampard and his Spanish fiancé, Elen Rives, live in Surrey with their two children, Luna and Isla; the latter was born just hours after Chelsea won the 2007 FA Cup.^[18] His autobiography, Totally Frank, was published in August 2006.

He is a supporter of the Conservative Party,^[19] but admitted that he had yet to vote in an election.

Statistics

As of September 24, 2008.

Honours

this might not be true because i wrote this

Chelsea

• FA Premier League:
  • Winner (2): 2004-05, 2005-06
  • Runner-up (3): 2003-04, 2006-07, 2007-08

• FA Cup:
  • Winner (1): 2007
  • Runner-up (1): 2002

• Football League Cup:
  • Winner (2): 2005, 2007
  • Runner-up: 2008

• FA Community Shield:
  • Winner (1): 2005
  • Runner-up: 2006, 2007

• UEFA Champions League:
  • Runner-up (1): 2008

Individual

• FWA Player of the Year: 2005
• FIFPro World XI: 2005
• PFA Premier League Team of the Year: 2005, 2006
• UEFA Club Midfielder of the Year: 2007-08

References

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:

Frank Lampard

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Frank Lampard

• Frank Lampard FIFA competition record
• Tactical Profile - Football-Lineups.com
• BBC profile
• Profile - Official Chelsea site
• Profile on the FA website
• Profile - UEFA.com
• Frank Lampard's career stats at Soccerbase
• Frank Lampard profile and statistics
• Sincerely yours, Frank FWA Footballer of the Year Award acceptance speech

Frank Lampard - Navigation boxes and awards v â€¢ d â€¢ e England squad – UEFA Euro 2004 1 James â€¢ 2 G. Neville â€¢ 3 A. Cole â€¢ 4 Gerrard â€¢ 5 Terry â€¢ 6 Campbell â€¢ 7 Beckham â€¢ 8 Scholes â€¢ 9 Rooney â€¢ 10 Owen â€¢ 11 Lampard â€¢ 12 Bridge â€¢ 13 Robinson â€¢ 14 P. Neville â€¢ 15 King â€¢ 16 Carragher â€¢ 17 Butt â€¢ 18 Hargreaves â€¢ 19 J. Cole â€¢ 20 Dyer â€¢ 21 Heskey â€¢ 22 Walker â€¢ 23 Vassell â€¢ Coach: Eriksson v â€¢ d â€¢ e England squad – 2006 FIFA World Cup 1 Robinson â€¢ 2 Neville â€¢ 3 A. Cole â€¢ 4 Gerrard â€¢ 5 Ferdinand â€¢ 6 Terry â€¢ 7 Beckham â€¢ 8 Lampard â€¢ 9 Rooney â€¢ 10 Owen â€¢ 11 J. Cole â€¢ 12 Campbell â€¢ 13 James â€¢ 14 Bridge â€¢ 15 Carragher â€¢ 16 Hargreaves â€¢ 17 Jenas â€¢ 18 Carrick â€¢ 19 Lennon â€¢ 20 Downing â€¢ 21 Crouch â€¢ 22 Carson â€¢ 23 Walcott â€¢ Coach: Eriksson Awards and achievements Preceded by Thierry Henry FWA Footballer of the Year 2005 Succeeded by Thierry Henry Preceded by Thierry Henry PFA Fans' Player of the Year (Premiership) 2005 Succeeded by Wayne Rooney