{"id":558463,"date":"2020-07-17T07:51:56","date_gmt":"2020-07-17T11:51:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonfootball.com\/?p=558463"},"modified":"2020-12-28T11:27:19","modified_gmt":"2020-12-28T16:27:19","slug":"billy-clarke-returns-for-third-spell-at-bradford-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2020\/07\/17\/billy-clarke-returns-for-third-spell-at-bradford-city\/","title":{"rendered":"Billy Clarke Returns for Third Spell at Bradford City"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Bradford City have completed the signing of striker Billy Clarke, who joins the club for the third time. The Irishman spent three years at the club between 2014 and 2017 in what was the most prolific spell of his career. He returned again in early 2019 but is now back for the third time to try and get his career going again.<\/p>\n<h2>Billy Clarke Rejoins Bradford City<\/h2>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">\ud83d\udcf0 | We have completed the signing of experienced forward <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/billyclarke7?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@billyclarke7<\/a>, who has penned a one-year contract!<\/p>\n<p>\u27a1\ufe0f | Read: <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/QA2Q8Le1hi\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/t.co\/QA2Q8Le1hi<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/BCAFC?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#BCAFC<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/CityForAll?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#CityForAll<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/rSKUSyc0vQ\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/rSKUSyc0vQ<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Bradford City AFC (@officialbantams) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/officialbantams\/status\/1284080294635724800?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">July 17, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h3>Clarke&#8217;s Previous Spells at Bradford<\/h3>\n<p>The striker&#8217;s first stint at Bradford began in 2014 after spending two years at Crawley Town. He had a decent goalscoring record at Crawley, notching 20 times, but this improved to 24 in his time with the Bantams.<\/p>\n<p>He also appeared as a late substitute in the club&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/sport\/football\/30860394\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">famous 4-2 win<\/a> away at <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonfootball.com\/clubs\/chelsea\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Chelsea<\/a> in the FA Cup in 2015.<\/p>\n<p>After departing for an unsuccessful spell at Charlton Athletic, Clare returned in 2019 but only managed to score one league goal in 14 games.<\/p>\n<p>After failing to find a new club in time for the start of the 2019\/20 season, he signed a short-term deal with Plymouth Argyle but left them in January for Grimsby Town.<\/p>\n<p>He&#8217;s now back at Bradford for a third time, signing a one-year contract.<\/p>\n<h3>What Was Said?<\/h3>\n<p>Speaking to the club website, Clarke said: \u201cI am absolutely over the moon to be back here, again. I was devastated to leave last time and to get the chance to return is unbelievable.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe time I had with Stuart McCall and Kenny Black was brilliant and we were close to achieving big things. It was the most enjoyable season of my career &#8211; to date.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI am determined to right the wrongs and bring my experience and quality back. Hopefully, we can enjoy a really successful season.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"t0EMnijnS-p-Z5asfY5ncA\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.co.uk\/detail\/463492498\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'t0EMnijnS-p-Z5asfY5ncA',sig:'6MqrhgW9FCiFlfWMrqrJIzzgH9vbjzR7L-rqWmRPTsI=',w:'594px',h:'415px',items:'463492498',caption: true ,tld:'co.uk',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bradford City have completed the signing of striker Billy Clarke, who joins the club for the third time. The Irishman spent three years at the club between 2014 and 2017 in what was the most prolific spell of his career. He returned again in early 2019 but is now back for the third time to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1144,"featured_media":558467,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[32,34,30,28],"tags":[4592,2939,168,520,136],"class_list":["post-558463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-league-football","category-league12","category-news","category-transfers","tag-billy-clarke","tag-bradford-city","tag-efl","tag-league-two","tag-world-football"],"modified_by":"Nat Goodlad, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1144"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=558463"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558463\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/558467"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=558463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=558463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=558463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}