Conor Pepper

Conor Pepper (born 4 May 1994) is an Irish professional association football player, who plays as a midfielder or full-back for Linfield.

Conor Pepper
Personal information
Full name Conor Pepper
Date of birth (1994-05-04) 4 May 1994
Place of birth Dublin, Ireland
Height 1.75 m (5 ft 9 in)
Position(s) Midfielder / Defender
Club information
Current team
 Linfield
Youth career
Portmarnock AFC
Cherry Orchard
2011–2012 St Patrick's Athletic
Senior career*
Years Team Apps (Gls)
2012 St Patrick's Athletic 0 (0)
2012–2014 Inverness Caledonian Thistle 12 (2)
2014–2017 Greenock Morton 47 (2)
2018–2020 Glentoran 57 (0)
2020– Linfield 0 (0)
National team
2012–2013 Republic of Ireland U19
* Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only and correct as of 10:25, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

Career

Born in Dublin, Pepper played youth football with Portmarnock AFC and Cherry Orchard AFC. He played for St. Patrick's Athletic Under 19s and also made one first team appearance in the Leinster Senior Cup in a Dublin derby away to Shamrock Rovers, before signing for Scottish Premier League club Inverness Caledonian Thistle in July 2012.[1]

He made his first competitive appearance for Inverness on 18 August 2012. During this appearance he scored a late equalising goal in a 2–2 draw against Hearts at Tynecastle.[2] He made an assist in his second match, a 4–2 loss against Celtic. Then scored his second goal for the club in his first start away at Hibernian.

Pepper has represented the Republic of Ireland at youth international levels.[3]

Despite a promising first campaign with Inverness with Terry Butcher, Pepper failed to figure during his second season and was subsequently released by the club in May 2014 by manager John Hughes.[4]

However, Pepper stayed in Scottish football by signing for Greenock Morton.[5] He agreed a new deal with Morton in May 2016.[6] Pepper was part of the team that won the Scottish league One title in his first season at Greenock Morton. Pepper featured in every game up of his second campaign until February 2016 when suffered a knee injury and didn't feature again for the first-team. After 3 seasons with Morton, Pepper left the club in May 2017 at the end of his contract.[7]

After spending a year without playing first-team football, still recovering from injury, Pepper moved to Belfast to sign for NIFL Premiership side Glentoran where he was a starter for most of the 2018-19 season. In the 2019-20 season Glentoran signed Caolan Marron in the January transfer window. The younger and vastly superior player Marron ultimately forced Pepper out of the starting team. Marron who featured for Glenavon in previous rounds was cup tied and this meant Pepper was given a lifeline to feature in Irish Cup games. However in the build up to the semi final with Cliftonville Conor suffered a mysterious injury that ultimately meant he could secure a move to the dark lords Linfield.

Conor supported a charity initiative in East Belfast called 'balls for all' aimed at supplying footballs for kids in the local community. Every other Saturday he would play at the Oval and rifle at least 15 balls in to the King George for local youths to gather up.

Conor is registered officially as a dwarf and has an irrational fear of long diagonal balls. 

[8]

Honours

Morton

Linfield

2020, Signing for the current NIFL Champions * (championship awarded without the completion of season while linfield were 4 points ahead with 21 points left to play for)

Career statistics

Professional appearances – correct as of 10 March 2020.[10]

Club Season League National Cup League Cup Europe Other Total
DivisionAppsGoalsAppsGoalsAppsGoalsAppsGoalsAppsGoalsAppsGoals
St Patrick's Athletic 2012 League of Ireland Premier Division 0000000[lower-alpha 1]01[lower-alpha 2]010
Inverness Caledonian Thistle 2012–13 Scottish Premiership 1220030——152
2013–14 000000——00
Inverness Caledonian Thistle Total 1220030——152
Greenock Morton 2014–15 Scottish League One 2522020—2[lower-alpha 3]0312
2015–16 Scottish Championship 2203040—1[lower-alpha 3]0300
2016–17 000000—0[lower-alpha 3]000
Greenock Morton Total 4725060—30612
Glentoran 2018–19 NIFL Premiership 3400020——360
2019–20 2301010——250
Glentoran Total 5701030——610
Career Total 11646012000401384
  1. Appearances in UEFA Europa League
  2. Appearances in Leinster Senior Cup
  3. Appearances in Scottish Challenge Cup

References
  1. "Caley snap up Pepper". Sky Sports. BSkyB. 27 July 2012. Archived from the original on 27 July 2012. Retrieved 18 August 2012.
  2. "Inverness: Butcher hails late Conor Pepper strike". BBC Sport. BBC. 18 August 2012. Retrieved 18 August 2012.
  3. Reilly, Francis (16 June 2010). "Conor makes Ireland debut". Fingal Independent. INM. Retrieved 18 August 2012.
  4. "Christie signs new ICT deal". Inverness Courier. Scottish Provincial Press. 16 May 2014. Archived from the original on 26 May 2014. Retrieved 28 May 2014.
  5. Mitchell, Jonathan (10 June 2014). "Morton set to secure double signing". Greenock Telegraph. Clyde & Forth Press Limited. Retrieved 23 June 2014.
  6. Mitchell, Jonathan (5 May 2016). "Five starts to stay at Morton". Greenock Telegraph. Retrieved 5 May 2016.
  7. Mitchell, Jonathan (15 May 2017). "Player contracts update". gmfc.net. Greenock Morton F.C. Retrieved 15 May 2017.
  8. "Welcome Conor Pepper". glentoran.com. Glentoran F.C. 2 August 2018. Retrieved 12 August 2018.
  9. "Greenock Morton claim League 1 title after 3–1 win against Peterhead". Scottish Television. 2 May 2015. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 15 August 2015.
  10. "Republic of Ireland – C.Pepper". Ie.soccerway.com. Retrieved 10 March 2020.
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