Anthony Stokes, Irish footballer
Anthony Christopher Stokes (born 25 July 1988) is an Irish professional footballer, who plays as a striker. He was also an Irish international, having played at the under-21, team B and Republic of Ireland national football team.
Stokes began his senior career with Arsenal, but established himself with a successful loan spell with Falkirk in 2006, scoring 14 goals in 16 SPL games. Stokes then signed for Sunderland in a £2 million deal, but he struggled to hold down a place in the Sunderland first team.
He moved back to Scottish football when Hibernian signed him for £500,000 in August 2009. He again enjoyed success in the SPL, scoring over 20 goals in his only full season with Hibs. Stokes moved to boyhood heroes Celtic shortly after the start of the following season, for a fee of around £1.2 million. Stokes played regularly for Celtic under the management of Neil Lennon and enjoyed success, but fell out of favour under Ronny Deila. In the latter part of the 2015–16 season he was loaned to Hibernian, who he helped win the 2015–16 Scottish Cup.
After a season with Blackburn Rovers, Stokes joined Hibernian for a third time in 2017 but was released in 2018. He then had short spells with Greek club Apollon Smyrni,
Iranian clubs Tractor and Persepolis, and Turkish club Adana Demirspor. Stokes was most recently with Livingston.
Stokes played in nine full internationals for the Republic of Ireland between 2007 and 2014.