Obafemi Martins Bio Send To Friend  

Martins is a pacy and powerful striker, known for his somersault celebrations. Capable of both the spectacular and the mediocre, he can destroy teams on his day yet be anonymous on others, as he proved in his first two seasons with Newcastle.

Signed from Inter Milan in the summer of 2006, Newcastle's injury crisis forced their hand into purchasing the striker, with Michael Owen out until the following season, and he arrived on Tyneside for £10.1 million.

Martins' career has been surrounded by controversy over his age, with rumours surfacing that the big Nigerian is actually three years older than he claims to be.

His refusal to take a bone-test, which would have revealed his correct date of birth, sparked inquiries, but the Nigerian FA confirmed that they had made a clerical error on his birth date (which stated he was born in 1978) when they first called him up to the national team.

Starting his career in Italy, the Nigerian was involved in the youth setup at AC Reggiana in 2000, but soon moved to Internazionale's youth squad in a deal worth £500,000. His first season was a great success, as he scored 23 goals and won the the Italian Under-18 title.

Breaking into the first-team in 2002, Martins would have to wait until the following year to really make an impression in Milan.

He used the club's UEFA Champions League campaign to show his goalscoring potential, netting against Bayer 04 Leverkusen to secure Inter's place in the quarter finals of the competition. He scored again against AC Milan in the semi-finals, but it wasn't enough to stop them going out on the away goals rule.

Martins signed a long-term deal with Inter until 2010, worth around £2million a year, and continued his good form for the club, before playing in the African Nations Cup, where he scored two goals.

On his return, and despite some success with the club, he found himself on the sidelines behind Adriano. With the arrival of more strikers in Chelsea's Hernan Crespo and Zlatan Ibrahimovic, who jumped from the sinking Juventus ship, Martins handed in a transfer request in August 2006.

Newcastle were always frontrunners to sign him, and did so in August, when he signed a five-year deal. He was also given the famous number 9 shirt worn by club-record goalscorer Alan Shearer.

He made his Newcastle debut in a 2-0 defeat at Newcastle and although he started slowly by the second half of the season he was becoming a crowd favourite at St James'.

The striker bagged 17 goals in all competitions in 2006/07, 11 of those in the Premiership, even though he spent much of the campaign up front on his own due to the fact Newcastle had no other fit senior strikers.