William Raymond Clark

Born: 19/05/1967 Christchurch, Dorset

Position: Defender

Rovers League Début: 17.10.87 v Chester City

Debut Number: 542

Clubs represented: Bournemouth, Poole Town (loan), Bristol Rovers, Bath City loan), Peterborough United (trial), Cheltenham Town (loan), Exeter City, Forest Green Rovers, Newport County, Weston-super-Mare.

Managerial/Coaching Positions: Clevedon Town (player/coach/ caretaker manager, Bristol Rovers (U-18 coach), Bath City (Academy coach).

BRFPA Club President Billy Clark was a reliable and dependable central defender and an essential ingredient in the Rovers story for a decade, scoring 12 goals in 266 league appearances for the club.

Having waited patiently to gain a regular place in Rovers’ side, the popular defender found injuries and the consistent form of others, notably Geoff Twentyman and Steve Yates, prevented him from making more of an impact.

A regular for a year, he scored against Brighton in May 1988 and then didn’t start another League game between October 1988 and March 1991.

During this time, though, he scored against Fulham in the play offs in May 1989 and featured as a substitute as Rovers secured the Third Division title in 1989/90. Popularly known as ‘The Judge’, because of the number of games spent on the bench, 64 League games by the summer of 1994 alone, Clark reclaimed his place in the side after conceding an own goal to Sheffield Wednesday at Hillsborough over Easter 1991. After playing at Wembley as Rovers lost to Huddersfield Town in the 1995 play off final, he added Rovers’ first goal of the 1995/96 campaign.

Prior to joining Rovers, Clark had made his Bournemouth début against Newport County in May 1985 before playing 16 times for Poole Town. After turning out for Peterborough against Wycombe Wanderers, he hit the crossbar with an acrobatic volley on his Exeter début at Hull in November 1997.

A Rovers testimonial game in July 1998, against a West Ham United side featuring Les Ferdinand, Frank Lampard and John Hartson ended in the hammers defeating Rovers 2-0, Ian Wright scoring his first two goals for his new club, and Clark subsequently played in two FA Cup-ties for Exeter against the Pirates. With Forest Green, he played alongside David Mehew as Cheltenham Town were defeated 2-1 in the Gloucestershire Senior Challenge Cup Final of July 2000 and he scored the winning goal against Rushden & Diamonds in the Conference, as well as appearing in the FA Vase Final at Villa Park in May 2001, Forest Green losing 1-0 to Canvey Island.

The FA Cup in 2003/04 saw Clark register an early goal to help defeat Farnborough Town 1-0 and head another goal in a 4-1 loss at Northampton Town. He made three appearances with Bath City, scored six times in 75 games at Forest Green and appeared in ten games for Weston super Mare.