Craig Bellamy's troublemaker' reputation should not be held against him for the rest of his life.

That's the view of Wales assistant boss Roy Evans, who defended the decision by John Toshack to give 27-year-old Bellamy the captaincy of his country for the first time - in the same week he must answer an assault charge in a Cardiff magistrates court.

Bellamy will be skipper in his home city for the Euro 2008 qualifiers against Slovakia on Saturday and Cyprus next Wednesday.

But that decision by Toshack has polarised opinion, with those who doubt his suitability for the role quick to point out that Bellamy has frequently courted trouble, culminating with the spectacular fall-out with Graeme Souness last year that ended his Newcastle career.

Since then Bellamy has worked to rid himself of that image at Celtic, Blackburn and now Liverpool.

But his attempts have not been helped by next week's court appearance, to answer a charge he has always denied.

Evans said: "Let's not allow things in the past to live with him forever. He should be remembered as a great player, so it's a little sad that we all have to talk about this. There is no doubt he did get into some trouble, that's well known.

"But you cannot hold that against him for the rest of his life. The lad has started to do the right things and we feel he will be a good captain for us.

"Mark Hughes had no problem with him, and neither has John (Toshack) or Rafa Benitez.

"If people can't handle a fiery character, then you have a problem. All you must do is make sure they are not disruptive to the squad. But in my time with Wales he has never been a problem, all he wants to do is play and win.

"He likes a moan but he's not the first guy to be partial to one of those."

Evans revealed Bellamy had been enthusiastic about taking on the captaincy.

He added: "He's pleased with the idea, he's getting a bit older now even if people might say he's had a chequered past. In terms of football he's Mr Enthusiasm'.

"He's delighted with the captaincy and gone about it in the right way. Hopefully it will help keep the court case at the back of his mind.

"It's not easy to have something like this hanging over you, but these things happen these days sometimes because people are high profile in the media.

"Hopefully we can keep his mind on football when he comes back from court for training sessions. We do not know yet the timings, but we will try to work training sessions around Craig but not to the detriment of the rest of the squad.

"We can train late afternoons, we will do all we can to keep Craig in training sessions without disrupting the entire squad.

"We need to see the court times and make decisions then, he is one of our top players and we want him included in the build-up to the game. We will try to minimise it as much as we can."