Kevin Campbell’s memorial

versatile striker for Everton and Arsenal who later rose to prominence as a pundit on football

TFD – Kevin Campbell, a former striker for Arsenal and Everton and a well-known football pundit, has passed away at the age of 54 after a brief illness. Campbell, celebrated for his contributions to the game and his engaging personality, leaves behind a legacy of remarkable achievements on the field and insightful commentary off it. He will be deeply missed by fans and colleagues alike.

PLAYER DATA

The football player Kevin Campbell, who passed away at the age of 54 following a brief illness, was a four-year member of Arsenal, the team he had supported and joined as a youngster, and during that time he won four league titles, an FA Cup, a League Cup, and the European Cup Winners’ Cup.

He scored eight goals in ten games as a striker in the second half of the 1991 Division One championship, and he scored four crucial goals throughout the knockout stages of the successful 1993–94 European Cup Winners’ Cup campaign, including one against Paris Saint–Germain in the semi-final.

Campbell never enjoyed the same degree of success after leaving Arsenal in 1995. However, he spent six years as the club captain and a well respected member of the Everton team from 1999 to 2005. During his 19-year career, he also played for four other well-liked teams: Nottingham Forest, West Bromwich Albion, Cardiff City, and the Turkish team Trabzonspor.

Though gregarious, perceptive, and kind, Campbell’s appeal was derived from both his personal qualities and his honest, unambiguous play on the field. At 6 feet 1 inch and 14 stone, he was a quick and strong striker who was also a dedicated team player.

Born in Lambeth, south London, Campbell is of Jamaican descent. He grew up in Brixton. When he was younger, he was an Arsenal fan. Since he couldn’t afford to attend home games, he would wait outside Highbury on match days until the North Bank gates opened just before the final whistle, allowing him to sneak inside to see the last few minutes of a game. With Terry Neill as manager, he signed for the team on schoolboy terms and made an immediate impression by scoring a lot of goals.

The club’s new manager, George Graham, gave him a professional contract at the age of eighteen after he played in the 1988 FA Youth Cup final and scored a hat-trick. He made his first-team debut against Everton shortly after.

He was, however, just playing in the reserves, and in 1989, in an attempt to acquire some playing time, he was loaned to Leyton Orient, a Division Four team. He quickly established himself, scoring nine goals in 16 games, but was forced to return to his native club after three months due to current regulations. There was a further loan period with Leicester that year, and he was unable to make a full breakthrough into the Arsenal first team until the 1990-91 season.

During that season, Campbell made 15 league appearances, the most of which came in the later going as Arsenal put up a serious fight for the championship. His eight league goals in a row from February to April helped Arsenal win the league championship by seven points over Liverpool.

In 1993, he scored four goals as Arsenal defeated Sheffield Wednesday 2-1 in the League Cup final. That same season, he and Ian Wright started up front in both of the FA Cup finals against Sheffield Wednesday, which ended in a 1-1 draw and a 2-1 replay victory after extra time.

Campbell’s goal in the 1-0 semi-final second leg victory over a formidable PSG squad in the next European Cup Winners’ Cup season of 1994 advanced them to the final against Parma, which they won 1-0 in Copenhagen.

Graham oversaw all of those accomplishments because he had carefully raised Campbell from the beginning. There was no such chemistry between Graham and Bruce Rioch, his successor, after Graham left in 1995. “I expected to stay as I was out of contract,” Campbell stated. “But I knew I was off after just one meeting with Bruce.”

He moved to Nottingham Forest shortly after, however despite his new team’s first-year Premier League result of ninth, they were relegated in the 1996–1997 season. With 23 goals, he enabled them to quickly recover, but in an unexpected turn of events, he was later traded against his will to Trabzonspor in the Turkish league for £2.5 million.

Before joining Everton on loan in early 1999, Campbell only stayed in Turkey for seven months. With nine goals in his first eight games, he virtually single-handedly kept the team from being relegated at the end of the 1998–1999 season, making him an instant hero at Goodison Park. He became the club captain and signed a new long-term contract by the middle of 2001.

After that deal expired in 2005, he transferred for free to West Bromwich Albion, where he once more played a key role in the Baggies’ incredible comeback from Premier League relegation, defeating all odds with a last-minute push under manager Bryan Robson to avoid the drop. He moved to Cardiff City in the Championship eighteen months later, and he retired in 2007 at the age of thirty-seven.

At the conclusion of his career, Campbell had scored 149 goals in 521 games for his different clubs. Though he never quite made the national team, he did represent his country at the Under-21 and B-team levels. He was often on the fringes of the England squad.

He was in high demand as a vivacious football pundit on TV and radio after his playing days. In addition, he co-owned a security firm that offered affluent customers personal protection and managed his own tiny record label, 2 Wikid.

Tyrese and Kyle, his sons, outlive him.

Player Kevin Joseph Campbell was born on February 4, 1970, and passed away on June 15, 2024.