| General Description:
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Kightly started out as a schoolboy for Tottenham Hotspur, but was released and subsequently picked up by his hometown team, non-league Basildon United. His stay was short and he was soon back in professional football playing for Southend United, where he made his league debut on May 3, 2003 in a 1-0 defeat at Exeter City.
Although featuring in all their cup games of this time, he made only 13 league appearances over 3 different seasons for them. He was loaned out to Farnborough Town in October 2004 and released at the end of the season by Southend manager Steve Tilson.
Conference side Grays Athletic signed Kightly, where he scored 15 league goals in his first season, and won the FA Trophy. He began the 2006-07 season still with Grays, and had scored 10 goals by November. Such form caught the eye of scouts at Championship side Wolverhampton Wanderers, to whom he completed a two-month emergency loan move on November 17, 2006.
He would subsequently return to play against Grays for Wolves in a pre-season friendly, which was a condition of the permament deal later made between the clubs.
Wolverhampton Wanderers:
Kightly scored his first ever league goal to earn a 1-0 victory at QPR. His form at Wolves led him to be dubbed "The Ryan Giggs of non-league football", and it was reported that Alex Ferguson was interested in signing Kightly for Manchester United. After scoring two goals in five games, his loan move was made permanent when he signed a two-and-a-half year contract for a nominal fee on New Years Day 2007, that would keep him at Molineux until June 2009.
He became a first-team regular in the remainder of the season, and his six goals helped the club into a play-off position. His performances made him a fans' favourite, ending up as runner-up for Wolves' Player of the Year 2006-07, losing out to goalkeeper Matt Murray. After missing out on promotion, it was reported that he was being tracked by clubs such as Aston Villa, Charlton, Spurs, Portsmouth and Everton. Kightly ended such speculation though by signing a new four-year deal with Wolves in June 2007.
His first full season with the club though has been severely hampered by a persistent ankle injury suffered in November 2007, from which he has twice tried to comeback into first team football. On 29th February 2008 Kightly went to a hospital in London for an operation on his troublesome ankle as a last ditch attempt to fix the problem. He now has his sights set on returning to training in time for the play-off's should Wolves qualify for them at the end of the 2007/2008 season.
International career:
Kightly was called into the England U21 squad in August 2007 for a friendly against Romania and went on to make his debut, playing the first half of the game.
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