Keiren Westwood is an English-born Irish footballer who plays as a goalkeeper.
He currently plays for Coventry City.
He qualifies to play for the Republic of Ireland national team by virtue of an Irish born Grandmother.
Westwood started his career at Manchester City where he did not play a game and was released as they had David James and Nicky Weaver in front of Westwood.
He then joined Carlisle United becoming the understudy to Matt Glennon. Although Westwood played in most cup games. In March 2005, when Glennon was injured, Westwood played a couple of Conference games before being replaced by the fit-again Glennon.
In the 2005-2006 season Glennon left Carlisle and they signed Anthony Williams as his replacement. It looked like Westwood would be the club's number two goalkeeper again, however, with a few below-par performances from Williams, Westwood finally got his chance to secure the number one shirt which he did. He started 35 League Two games in their title season and continued to be the club's number one goalkeeper.
At the end of the 2007-08 season in League One, Westwood was named in the Professional Footballers' Association (PFA) team of the season and also won all of the club's Player of the Season awards.
On 18 June 2008 Westwood signed a three year contract with Championship club Coventry City for an undisclosed fee. In his time at Coventry he has made 15 appearances and kept 5 clean sheets. He also attracted attention after the match with Birmingham City in which he pulled off numerous "world class" saves
On 17 May 2008, Westwood was called up by the Republic of Ireland to attend their training camp in Portugal, after impressive displays[clarification needed] against Leeds United in the League One playoffs. Three days later, he made his debut as a second half substitute in a practice match against Portuguese club Lagos, replacing Joe Murphy after 66 minutes.[3]
Westwood's inclusion was controversial with some Irish fans who believed there were more worthy choices for the jersey to be found in the League of Ireland such as Bohemian's Brian Murphy. Murphy himself called Westwood's call-up to the squad a "piss take"[4]
Some fans were also concerned with comments Westwood made concerning his eligibility to play for Ireland in which the goalkeeper said, "I'm not Irish as such, but I'm a Catholic boy."
Westwood tried to set the record straight by insisting his comments were "tongue in cheek."
"As a bit of a joke I said I'm a good Catholic boy and it seemed to have got taken out of context by somebody at some point"
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