Former Arsenal youth player and later Celtic striker Anthony Stokes has been sentenced to Prison in Scotland.
His actions represent a sharp fall for a once-promising footballer whose career was repeatedly undermined by off-field misconduct and disregard for team expectations.
Anthony Stokes, who played for both Arsenal and Celtic, has been jailed for at least 30 days in Scotland, marking a new low in a career marked by off-field troubles.
Stokes, 35, absconded to Dublin while on bail facing sentencing for abusive messages to a former partner. Now back in Scotland, he’s been imprisoned by magistrates.
Stokes’s history & Arsenal relevance
While never a core member of Arsenal‘s senior squad, Anthony Stokes did launch his career in their youth system. His most successful period came later with Celtic. But even amidst his goal-scoring achievements, Stokes faced disciplinary issues.
At Hibernian, manager Neil Lennon grew frustrated with Stokes’s inconsistency, saying, “There’s only so many times you can push the envelope,” in regards to the player.
Pattern of misconduct
A 2018 suspended sentence for headbutting an Elvis impersonator highlights Stokes’s lengthy legal problems. While talented, missing training sessions and defying managers became a hallmark of his journeyman career.
A journeyman career
Starting at Arsenal, Anthony Stokes barely got a glimpse of first-team football with only one one-minute appearance. Nevertheless, his career saw him flit from club to club, notching up a total of 420 appearances, 164 goals, and 82 assists across multiple leagues.
His most fruitful spell came at Celtic, where he scored 76 goals and provided 64 assists in 191 appearances. The Republic of Ireland international spent a significant amount of time on the pitch for Celtic, accumulating nearly 12,989 minutes.
After Celtic, he joined Hibernian FC and became a key figure, scoring 46 goals in 94 appearances. Yet, his career also took him to lesser-known territories. For instance, he moved to Iranian side Tractor FC, where he made 24 appearances and notched up 13 goals.
However, despite his ability to find the net, Stokes struggled to maintain consistent form in the UK, evident from his spells at Blackburn Rovers and Sheffield United where he made only 12 appearances for each.
Stokes’s frequent moves also saw him join clubs like Adana Demirspor, Apollon Smyrnis, and Persepolis FC, albeit for relatively short stints.
Falkirk and Crystal Palace are also on his list of clubs.
Despite only being 33 at the time, Stokes retired in 2020 less than a month after signing for Livingston FC, ending a tumultuous career that often attracted attention for the wrong reasons.