Bamford, Patrick – International footballer was born in Grantham

Patrick Bamford (b1993)

FOOTBALLER Patrick Bamford was born in Grantham, and joined Nottingham Forest’s Academy as an eight-year-old after playing junior football for Muskham Cougars.

He attended Nottingham High School where he did French, History, Biology and General Studies and got a good set of A-Level results.

He was an unused substitute during Forest’s League Cup Third Round tie against Newcastle United at the City Ground making his Forest debut against Cardiff City at the City Ground on 31 December 2011, coming on as a substitute.

Bamford furthered his claim to a place in the Forest side by scoring five and setting up three goals in a 9–1 victory over Wigan Athletic youth in the FA Youth Cup, and the following week scored four goals in a 5–1 win over Southampton.

In January 2012, Bamford joined Chelsea on a five-year contract for a  £1.5 million fee.

Chelsea then loaned him out to Milton Keynes Dons, Derby County, Middlesbrough with whom he won the Championship Player of the Year. He then had further loans at Crystal Palace, Norwich City and Burnley, before returning to Middlesbrough for a fee believed to be in the region of £5.5 million. He joined Leeds United on 31 July 2018 and helped the club win the EFL Championship and gain promotion to the Premier League under the management of Marcelo Bielsa.

Capped once for the Republic of Ireland at under-18 level, he later changed allegiances to England, which he represented up to under-21 level, before switching back to Ireland in 2019.

Bamford was included in Gareth Southgate’s 27-man preliminary squad for the 2015 UEFA European Under-21 Championship, but was excluded from the final squad due to injury.[131]

In March and July 2018, Republic of Ireland – and former Grantham –  manager Martin O’Neill revealed he and assistant manager Roy Keane had been scouting Bamford, as they were looking into the possibility of calling up Bamford to the Republic of Ireland squad, should Bamford change allegiance back to the Ireland national team.

On 23 December 2018, new Republic of Ireland Manager Mick McCarthy confirmed he would be speaking to Bamford about calling him up to the national team, and on 7 March 2019 McCarthy announced that Bamford would be switching his allegiance back to Ireland

After McCarthy revealed in June 2019 that he was still waiting for Bamford to make a decision about playing for Ireland, noting how he was ‘refusing to chase’ Bamford, former Leeds and Republic of Ireland striker Robbie Keane criticised Bamford saying, “I’ll tell you with Patrick Bamford, he should be chasing us. He should want to come here. If he doesn’t want to, no problem. We shouldn’t be chasing people, by the way.”

On 30 April 2019, the Football Association handed Bamford a two-match ban after charging him with “successful deception of a match official” during the home game against Aston Villa in which Bamford feigned injury in a fracas involving Anwar El Ghazi. El Ghazi’s red card was later rescinded by the FA and Bamford received a two-match ban for deception. Replays showed that Bamford had dived to the ground clutching his face despite no contact being made.

In August 2019, Bamford was one of the main stars of the Amazon Prime documentary Take Us Home, telling the story of the 2018–19 season. He featured in several episodes, and the series was narrated by Academy Award-winning actor and Leeds fan Russell Crowe.

After the English professional football season was paused in March 2020 due to Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on association football, the season was resumed during June, Bamford finished Leeds top scorer for the season as they earned promotion to the Premier League and also become the EFL Championship Champions for the 2019–20 season in July after the successful resumption of the season.

In August 2021, Bamford was called up for the England teamfor the first time ahead of FIFA World Cup qualifiers. His debut came against Andorra on 5 September 2021, where he started and played 62 minutes of the 4–0 victory at Wembley Stadium (he was not named for the game against Hungary, and was an unused substitute in the Poland game in Warsaw on 8 September.

Bamford is a distant relative of JCB chairman Anthony Bamford. He plays the piano, violin, guitar and saxophone, and is conversational in French, Spanish and German.