Born on this day in 1989 is former Sunderland midfielder David Meyler. He played for SAFC from 2008-2013 but, due to injury, only made 31 total appearances.
Born in Cork, Ireland in 1989, Meyler started his career playing for Cork City’s youth team before signing a professional contract. However he only made three appearances for the team and soon after arrived on Wearside as part of Keano's Irish revolution. He was signed for a reported fee of around £250,000.
Although he was signed in July 2008, his first appearance would not be until a year and a half later. He made his first appearance starting for the team against the Blackburn Rovers on 28th December 2009. On 2nd May 2010, while playing against Man United, Meyler suffered serious damage to his ligaments which left him out of action until November of that year when he returned for Sunderland Reserves against the Liverpool Reserves.
The manager at the time, Steve Bruce, was cautious to not rush the midfielder back to the first team. His return to the team was in December 2010 when he played 52 minutes in a match against Fulham (we drew 0-0).
Unfortunately, in January 2011, Meyler was pulled away on a stretcher from a match at Aston Villa and it was revealed that he had torn his medial ligament in the same knee as before. This took him off the first team for another 10 weeks until his return on the bench on 16th April 2011 against Birmingham City.
During the 2011-12 season, he played more reserve matches and made his first appearance with Martin O’Neill on 3rd January 2012 against Wigan Athletic as a substitute. His first start of the season was in February 2012 away at Stoke City. At this match, German player, Robert Huth challenged Meyler and received a red card - we went on to win 1-0. Stoke manager at the time, Tony Pulis found Meyler’s reaction “disappointing” saying “I don’t think Robert actually touches the lad.” After this, he did not start another game for the rest of the 2011-12 season...
In the 2012-13 season, Meyler went to Hull City on loan until January 2013 when he signed a three and a half year contract for an undisclosed fee. He remained on Humberside until 2018 when he signed a two year contract with Reading. During his time here, he went out on loan to Coventry City before announcing his retirement from professional football in August 2019. As well as this, he played international football for the Republic of Ireland from 2012-2018 making 26 appearances.
Whilst at Hull, Meyler played part in Mag manager Alan Pardew’s biggest moment of his career. The infamous headbutt heard all around the world. Even though the Mags were up 3-1 Pardew couldn’t help himself and went in for a cheeky Cantona-esque headbutt. He was then sent off and fined $100,000.
Sadly, Meyler didn’t play much for the Black Cats but he was no doubt a good player on his other teams such as Hull, where he made 147 appearances and scoring 13 goals. Meyler’s drive to get back out on the pitch must be what made him such a great asset to his teams.
Meyler has tried to stay involved in football like most former players usually do. David has worked alongside BT Sport as a pundit and featured on many fan podcasts. He also live streamed himself playing popular video games like Fifa. Most recently he has started his own academy for young aspiring footballers. On the 6th of March 2023, Meyler joined the academy staff at Hull City as a casual under 15's coach.
