Matthew James Ward (born 16 August 2003) is an English professional

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 le ...

who plays as a

forward Forward is a relative direction, the opposite of backward. Forward may also refer to: People * Forward (surname) Sports * Forward (association football) * Forward (basketball), including: ** Point forward ** Power forward (basketball) ** Sm ...

for

Braintree Town Braintree Town Football Club is a semi-professional football club based in Braintree, Essex, England. They are currently members of and play at Cressing Road. History The club was formed on 24 September 1898 as Manor Works, the works team o ...

on loan from club

Ipswich Town Ipswich Town Football Club is a professional association football club based in Ipswich, Suffolk, England. They play in League One, the third tier of the English football league system. The club was founded in 1878 but did not turn profession ...

Career

Ward joined the Academy at

from Wroxham in 2020. He had scored three goals in five games for Wroxham in the Eastern Counties Football League during the abandoned

2020–21 The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen b ...

season. In March 2021, a deal was agreed "in principle" for him to sign his first professional contract with Ipswich Town the following season. He made his first-team debut on 27 November 2022, coming on as an 82nd-minute substitute for Gassan Ahadme in a 4–0 win over Buxton in the FA Cup. Following a loan spell with Irish side,

Derry City Derry, officially Londonderry (), is the second-largest city in Northern Ireland and the fifth-largest city on the island of Ireland. The name ''Derry'' is an anglicisation of the Old Irish name (modern Irish: ) meaning 'oak grove'. The ...

in early 2023, Ward joined

National League South The National League South, formerly Conference South, is one of the second divisions of the National League in England, immediately below the top division National League. Along with National League North, it is in the second level of the N ...

side,

in November that same year.

Career statistics

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ward, Matt 2003 births Living people English men's footballers Men's association football forwards Wroxham F.C. players Ipswich Town F.C. players Derry City F.C. players Braintree Town F.C. players Eastern Counties Football League players League of Ireland players National League (English football) players Place of birth missing (living people)