Adrian James Clarke (born 28 September 1974) is a former English

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby ...

, who played at every level of English football from the

Premier League The Premier League (legal name: The Football Association Premier League Limited) is the highest level of the men's English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Fo ...

to the Conference South. The winger made nine first team appearances for Arsenal including five starts and also represented

Southend United Southend United Football Club is a professional association football club based in Southend-on-Sea, Essex, England. As of the 2022–23 season, the team competes in the National League, the fifth tier of English football. Southend are known as ...

, Stevenage,

Margate Margate is a seaside town on the north coast of Kent in south-east England. The town is estimated to be 1.5 miles long, north-east of Canterbury and includes Cliftonville, Garlinge, Palm Bay and Westbrook. The town has been a significan ...

and,

Welling United Welling United Football Club is a professional football club, based in Welling in the London Borough of Bexley, England. The club's first team play in the National League South, at the sixth tier of English football. History Welling United Foot ...

. He also played for England Schoolboys and the England Under-18s. After retiring in 2005 he became a sports journalist and broadcaster. He is a presenter, match analyst and co-commentator for Arsenal Player, a pundit for

BT Sport BT Sport is a group of pay television sports channels in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Owned by Warner Bros. Discovery Sports Europe and BT Group, they first launched on 1 August 2013. The channels are based at the former International Bro ...

and Premier League Productions, and can also be heard regularly on Talksport and BBC Radio Essex. He is a tactics expert for the Premier League website, and writes a weekly column for the Today newspaper in Singapore.

Playing career

Born in

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a College town, university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cam ...

, England, Clarke started his career at Arsenal. It was a different A Clarke (Albert) who won the FA Youth Cup of the 1993–94 season under

Pat Rice Patrick James Rice, MBE (born 17 March 1949) is a Northern Irish former footballer and coach. As a player, he made over 500 appearances for Arsenal, winning the Double, and later made a hundred more appearances for Watford. He also won 49 ca ...

. Adrian Clarke, meanwhile, played a total of nine games for the first team, making his league debut on New Year's Eve 1994 as a substitute in a 3–1 defeat to

Queens Park Rangers Queens Park Rangers Football Club, commonly abbreviated to QPR, is a professional football club based in Shepherd's Bush, West London, England, which compete in the . After a nomadic early existence, they have played home matches at Loftus Ro ...

Highbury Highbury is a district in North London and part of the London Borough of Islington in Greater London that was owned by Ranulf brother of Ilger and included all the areas north and east of Canonbury and Holloway Roads. The manor house was sit ...

, and his first start on 26 December 1995 in a 3-0 success at home to QPR once again. He had loan spells at

Rotherham United Rotherham United Football Club, nicknamed The Millers, is a professional football club based in Rotherham, South Yorkshire, England, which compete in the . The club's colours were initially yellow and black, but changed to red and white around 1 ...

and

in 1996–97 before he signed for Southend on a free transfer in August 1997. He played 75 league games for Southend scoring his first career goal in a 3–1 victory over Brentford on 5 September 1997. Clarke joined Cumbrian side Carlisle United on loan in September 1999 before returning to Essex. He left Southend at the end of the 1999–2000 season and joined

Stevenage Borough Stevenage Football Club (known as Stevenage Borough Football Club until 2010) is a professional association football club based in the town of Stevenage, Hertfordshire, England. The team competes in EFL League Two, League Two, the fourth tier o ...

on a free transfer. In less than two seasons he played 85 games, scoring 19 goals, before another loan spell at Hendon. He spent just a month at Hendon but was snapped up by

on a free transfer at the end of his loan spell. Clarke played 97 games for Margate, captaining the team a number of times and scoring 11 goals, before joining

. He was forced to retire with a serious pelvic injury.

Post-football

After he retired, Clarke pursued media studies, thus landing a job at the '' Southend Evening Echo'' as a journalist. He worked as deputy editor of '' icons.com'', a football editorial and signed memorabilia website, and also wrote several feature articles for UEFA.com, Champions Magazine and

FourFourTwo ''FourFourTwo'' is a football magazine published by Future. Issued monthly, it published its 300th edition in May 2019. It takes its name from the football formation of the same name, 4-4-2. In 2008, it was announced that ''FourFourTwo'' had ...

. Clarke is currently a presenter, match analyst and co-commentator on Arsenal's official online television channel. A regular guest on the Alan Brazil Sports Breakfast Show on Talksport, he also co-commentates for BBC Radio Essex, Talksport International and Talksport 2 and writes for several other major media clients around the world. He is a tactics columnist for the official Premier League website. Clarke is a regular panelist on the Totally Football Show and Handbrake Off podcasts.

References

External links

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Adrian Clarke.tv
{{DEFAULTSORT:Clarke, Adrian Living people 1974 births Sportspeople from Cambridge English footballers Association football midfielders Arsenal F.C. players Rotherham United F.C. players Southend United F.C. players Carlisle United F.C. players Stevenage F.C. players Hendon F.C. players Margate F.C. players Welling United F.C. players Premier League players English Football League players