Garry O'Connor

Garry Lawrence John O'Connor (born 7 May 1983) is a Scottish professional football manager and a former player.

He played for Hibernian, Peterhead, Lokomotiv Moscow, Barnsley, Tom Tomsk, Birmingham City, Greenock Morton and represented Scotland.

A Hibernian youth graduate, he made his debut for the club under manager Alex McLeish in April 2001 as a substitute against Dundee, his only appearance that season.

O'Connor made just four appearances before Christmas in the following season.

After the departure of McLeish to Rangers and the appointment of new manager Franck Sauzée, O'Connor featured more regularly in the first team.

O'Connor began his career with Hibernian, where his performances in 2002 earned him selection for Scotland as an 18-year-old, and he later earned a lucrative transfer to Lokomotiv Moscow.

He scored his first goal for the club in a 1–1 draw with Celtic in February 2002.

Although Sauzée was sacked later that month, O'Connor continued to feature in the first team under Sauzée's successor Bobby Williamson.

O'Connor went on to score a further seven goals that season, including goals in five consecutive games between March and April.

Following two seasons in which he struggled to fulfil his early promise, the arrival of manager Tony Mowbray at Hibs in May 2004 led to improved form for both O'Connor and the team as a whole, as Hibs finished third in the 2004–05 Scottish Premier League.

O'Connor formed a formidable partnership with Derek Riordan, and between them they scored 42 goals that season, as Hibs earned qualification for the UEFA Cup.

On 26 February 2006, it was reported that O'Connor was set to join Lokomotiv Moscow for approximately £1.6 million.

This offer was subsequently accepted by Hibernian, with Tony Mowbray conceding that the personal terms on offer, a reported weekly wage of £16,000, were "life-changing for Garry and his family".

On 6 March, it was announced that the transfer had been agreed.

O'Connor scored a total of 58 goals for Hibs in all competitions and scored in his final Hibs appearance, against Falkirk in the Scottish Cup.

He donated his portion of the transfer fee to the club to fund their training facilities.

On 22 March 2006, O'Connor scored for the first time for Lokomotiv Moscow, the opening goal in a 2–2 draw with Spartak Moscow in a Russian Cup tie.

He opened the scoring for his side against Torpedo Moscow in a 4–1 win on 14 May.

In the 2006 season, he scored seven league goals and a cup goal in the 29 matches he played in (although only on the field for the full 90 minutes in five matches – he averaged 58 minutes of playing time per match), and was yellow-carded once.

In Moscow he formed a partnership with Russian international Dmitry Sychev, although Dramane Traoré, the Mali international, threatened his position.

He scored a winning goal in the 2007 Russian Cup final for Lokomotiv.

O'Connor struggled to settle in Russia, and he returned to the United Kingdom later that year by signing for Birmingham City.

On 27 May 2007, O'Connor came off the bench to score the winning goal for Lokomotiv Moscow in the 2006–07 Russian Cup Final against city rivals FC Moscow.

O'Connor completed a £2.7 million move to Birmingham City on 28 June 2007, and scored his first goal for the club on his first appearance, on 15 August 2007 against Sunderland in a 2–2 draw.

However, he lost his place, and manager Alex McLeish told him he needed to get fitter to return to the starting eleven.

He had to wait until January 2008 for his second league goal, an equaliser against Arsenal.

He missed several games in early 2008 through illness, and McLeish told him to "write the season off and come back this season all guns blazing".

O'Connor worked with a fitness coach over the summer, lost weight, and returned to training with a positive attitude towards the coming season and towards his manager.

He had a successful pre-season and started well in the Championship with an assist for Kevin Phillips followed by scoring three goals in three games, but then sustained a groin injury.

Returning to the team a month later, he produced some good performances and scored three more goals in two games, prompting his inclusion in the Championship Team of the Week, before again injuring his groin, this time in the pre-match warm-up at Queens Park Rangers on 29 October 2008, a match which Birmingham went on to lose.

He returned to first-team action against Doncaster on 14 March 2009, and his goal on 6 April that confirmed a 2–0 win over Championship leaders Wolverhampton Wanderers for a Birmingham side reduced to ten men was voted as the club's Moment of the Season.

O'Connor missed most of the 2009–10 season after undergoing two operations on a hip injury.

McLeish suggested that the injury dated back to O'Connor's time with Hibernian and had been aggravated by playing on synthetic pitches in Russia while he was with Lokomotiv Moscow.

O'Connor struggled to hold a place in the Birmingham side due to injuries, and he spent most of the 2010–11 season with Barnsley.

The extra-time goal, coming in the 109th minute, was enough to seal a 1–0 victory for the railway team, and provided a measure of redemption for O'Connor, who had struggled to settle in Russia for family reasons.

He then returned to Hibernian for the 2011–12 season, scoring 12 goals in 33 league appearances.

A Channel 4 documentary Dispatches, aired in September 2011, claimed that O'Connor had been sidelined due to failing a drugs test.

His contract had been due to expire at the end of the season, but the club extended it for six months to give him a chance to prove his fitness.

O'Connor signed for Russian club Tom Tomsk in July 2012, but was released after making only six appearances.

Born in Edinburgh and raised in Port Seton in East Lothian, O'Connor's early mentor in football was his uncle Mark, who was killed after being struck by a car when O'Connor was 14.