Player Profile

Legendary left-back, Alan Kennedy, had a hand in bringing Warnock to Liverpool: "I remember Stephen being at one of my soccer schools and he really stood out as being a brilliant prospect. I got on the phone to Steve Heighway and Roy Evans and said you have got to take a look at this boy." Warnock overcame three leg breaks as made his way from the Liverpool academy into professional football! He showed great character and determination to survive these ordeals and make a name for himself. Academy director and former Liverpool star, Steve Heighway, witnessed Warnock's struggles: "We shared the pain and the agony he endured. Watching him go through six months of rehabilitation from a broken leg, then watch him break his leg immediately again and go through a further six months rehab and then get another slight break after that. I don't think people realise what he has achieved." Warnock is a versatile player who is equally adept at left-back and in left and central midfield. He is a tough customer which former Liverpool teammate, Danny Guthrie, can testify to. "Stevie Warnock is the hardest tackler. He's mean in the tackle, even in training."

Before he made his first-team debut Warnock impressed when on loan at Coventry in the 2003/04 season when he was voted Fans' Player of the Season. Warnock made 30 appearances for Liverpool in Rafa's first season at the club. Despite finally making progress 2004/05 was a heartbreaking season for Warnock. "On a personal level, the Carling Cup and Champions League finals stand out as particularly low points for me. I'd played in every round of the League Cup before the final, and missed out on a medal. Then when I wasn't in the squad for the European Cup final I'd have to say that was my lowest point of all. There weren't enough winners' medals for us all, so I didn't get one. I spent time over the summer getting over that." Warnock made the same total of appearances the following season but did make six more starts. He was still not too happy with Rafa's modus operandi: "Even if you’d played really well one week, you never thought you would play the next. People were being rested in September and October and I just think that’s crazy. You don’t want to be rested at that stage of the season. I thought I needed to play week in, week out to improve myself as a player. But it was not just the team, it was the same with the squad as well. The squad used to go up on a Friday afternoon and you wouldn’t even know who was going to be in it. It was comical sometimes. No one would have a clue why certain people were not included but the manager would keep his reasons to himself."

After making only six appearances in the first half of 2006/07 Rafa sold Warnock to Blackburn in the January 2007 transfer window where he made the left-back position his own and also featured in midfield. Warnock made his international debut in a friendly against Trinidad & Tobago on 1 June 2008 which has proved to be his only international. Warnock was in inspired form and was voted Blackburn's Player of the Year in the 2008/09 season. On 11 April 2009, before Blackburn Rovers' match against Liverpool, Warnock put a flower display with the numbers '96' in front of the Kop on the twentieth anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster. This was greeted with chants of 'Stephen Warnock' from the Kop. Aston Villa bought Warnock in the summer of 2009 where he had a steady first season, appearing in 30 of the 38 Premier League matches as Villa finished sixth in the table. They also reached the final of the League Cup and the semi-final of the FA Cup but were beaten in those competitions by Manchester United and Chelsea respectively. Warnock was named in England manager Fabio Capello's provisional 30-man squad for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. He made the final squad of twenty-three players but did not see a single minute of action in any of England's four matches.

Warnock missed the second part of the 2010/11 season due to injuries, but come the new season he was fit again and raring to go. Although he played in most of Villa's first-team matches in 2011/12, Warnock was not selected for the early competitive matches of Paul Lambert's reign at Villa Park. After being on loan at Bolton Wanderers from September 2012 until January he was released from his Villa contract that had six months to run. Consequently, Warnock signed a two and a half year contract for Leeds United. He played in fifteen matches in The Championship for Bolton Wanderers and sixteen for Leeds United in the 2012/13 season. New Leeds manager Brian McDermott, who had replaced Neil Warnock, made the defender his captain for his first match in charge, against Sheffield Wednesday in April 2013. In 2013/14 Warnock played in 27 of Leeds United's 46 matches in the Championship, scoring once (the winner at Yeovil early in February). Stephen also played in United's League Cup defeat at Newcastle in September. Leeds ended the season in 15th position. Halfway through the January 2015 transfer-window Warnock signed an 18-month deal with another Championship club, Derby County, but was loaned to League One Wigan for the last three months of the campaign. After helping them to promotion he signed a one year deal for Wigan, missing only one game in 2016-17 as they were relegated from the Championship back to League One. After his contract expired he remained in the Championship with Burton Albion, but the joined Bradford City on loan in the January 2018 transfer window.

In April 2018 Warnock announced he would be retiring at the end of the season, saying he wanted to make the call himself rather than wait for his body to tell him it was time to stop. He was named captain for Bradford's last fixture, a 1-1 draw at Scunthorpe.