Looking all the way back to eighteen years ago to 12/02/03, we would find a young Northern Irish lad receive his first international cap in a 1-0 defeat at the hands of Finland.
From then on Craigan would receive an impressive 54 international caps from 2003 to 2011 while racking up some impressive victories such as a 1-0 win over England in 2005 and a 3-2 victory over Spain in 2006, who would go on to become European champions from this Euro 2008 qualifying group.
Over the course of the Euro 2008 qualifiers, Craigan would go unbeaten from the 06/09/06 win over Spain to the 21/11/07 where Spain would get their revenge. In this time, Northern Ireland would beat Denmark, Sweden, Lichtenstein twice and Latvia while drawing with both Scandinavian teams as well. During this time however Craigan was unfortunately dropped for what should have been an easy away game to Latvia, Northern Ireland lost 1-0 and proved how crucial he was to the Northern Ireland set up.
These two jerseys here are both from Northern Ireland’s 2004 Caribbean tour where they played against St Kitts and Nevis, Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago. They only team they didn’t beat were Barbados who they drew with 1-1.
He has also held his own against some of the worlds best such as playing against a young Robert Lewandowski in 2009, Raul, David Villa and Fernando Torres in 2006, Andrea Pirlo in 2010, Zlatan Ibrahimovic in 2007, Dimitar Berbatov in 2006 as well. However none of these generational talents compare to the numerous times he’s faced my dad at badminton over the years.
THE KIT RAIL 