Fat Footballers: Steve McNulty

Picture: www.burdenaces.com.

A footballer that is nicknamed “Sumo” can’t miss in our column about fat footballers, so let us introduce you Stephen Michael “Steve” McNulty !

The subject of this post was born 30 years ago in Liverpool, United Kingdom, and started playing football in the Liverpool FC Academy, despite being an Everton FC supporter, but he was released in 2003, when he had to find a new Club and was signed by Burscough (Northern Premier League, seventh tier), with whom he spent two seasons, scoring 3 goals in 52 appearances.

At the beginning of 2007/08 Season he signed for Vauxhall Motors, that was competing in Conference North, one division above, with whom he had played for two years, scoring 5 goals in 58 matches, before moving to Barrow, where he spent two Seasons (78 games and 12 goals), being named Conference North Player of the Year in 2007/08 and gaining promotion to Conference Premier.

During 2009 Summer McNulty came back to Conference North as he was signed by Fletwood Town for £17.000, but that Season they were promoted to Conference Premier after winning the Play-offs: in the following year they were defeated in the Play-off Semi-final, but in 2011/12 they won the league with 103 points and were promoted to League Two.

2012/13 Season was the first one ever in The Football League for both Fletwood Town and Steve McNulty, but in December 2013 the manager Micky Mellon was replaced by Graham Alexander, who, also because of an injury, sidelined Steve, who, after playing 110 games and scoring 9 goals in 3 years and an half, was allowed to find a new club for himself.

In January 2013 Steve moved to Luton Town FC (Conference National), with whom, after finishing seventh in his first half season, won the league in 2013/14, coming back to League Two, and becoming a fans’ favourite.

Few days ago in a giants’ clash he faced Adebayo Akinfenwa in the first matchday of 2014/15 Season, but he couldn’t prevent the striker from providing the assist for the winning goal that gave Wimbledon AFC a 1-0 win.

Steve McNulty is a very powerful and physical central back with a very good aerial ability, who surely isn’t too fast, but is technically very gifted: he’s a great passer, very good at first touch play as well, and basically he’s a defensive playmaker, usually one of the brains of his teams. Moreover he’s very charismatic, he commands teammates and is a leader on the pitch: the fact the he captained Liverpool FC U19, Barrow and Fletwood Town, and he’s the current vice-captain at Luton Town, can’t be a coincidence !

Finally we give you Steve’s measures: according to Luton Town official website he’s 1,86m tall and his weight is 88kgs, but we don’t trust too much about these data, anyway it looks like that he has lost a bit of weight during last Seasons !