Darron Thomas Daniel Gibson Biography

Born 25 October 1987 in Derry, Northern Ireland. He is an Irish footballer who plays for Manchester United. Having previously been loaned out to Royal Antwerp and Wolverhampton Wanderers. Gibson was assigned the number 28 shirt in Manchester United Squad.

A former pupil of St Columb's College, Gibson played junior football in the Derry and District League, and then with Institute F.C. before joining Manchester United in 2004. He made his senior debut for United on 26 October 2005 in a League Cup game against Barnet, coming on as a substitute for Lee Martin. During the 2005–06 season he played regularly for Manchester United Reserves, helping them win a treble. He made 19 appearances, scoring twice. In May 2006, he won the prestigious Jimmy Murphy Award as United's youth player of the year and then played regularly for the United senior team during their pre-season summer games. Together with Dong Fangzhuo, Jonny Evans, Fraizer Campbell and Danny Simpson, he was one of several United players who spent the 2006–07 season on loan at Royal Antwerp. In October 2007, he was loaned out again, this time to Wolverhampton Wanderers, where he spent the majority of the 2007–08 season. At Wolves he scored once, against Burnley on 8 December 2007.

In International Career Gibson was at the centre of a dispute between the Irish Football Association and the Football Association of Ireland over the eligibility of players born within Northern Ireland to represent the Republic of Ireland. Normally, players not born within the territory of the Association they wish to represent must demonstrate to FIFA that they have a valid "connection" (ancestry or residence) with that territory. However, the unique position in Northern Ireland, whereby citizenship of the Republic of Ireland is the "birthright" of every person born on the island of Ireland if they so wish, meant that Gibson was eligible to play for the Republic of Ireland at international level. As a result, Gibson was approached to represent both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland at international level. In the wake of the controversy which this dispute engendered, certain other players from Northern Ireland have sought to take advantage of this application of the eligibility rules by FIFA. However, this does not (as yet, at least) appear to have "opened the floodgates", since of the three other senior players who sought to declare for the Republic of Ireland, Tony Kane and Michael O'Connor both reversed their initial decision and reverted to Northern Ireland and it turns out that a third, Marc Wilson, who opted to stay with the Republic of Ireland, has in any case a grandparent who was born in the Republic.

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