Leon Marvin Clarke was born in Wolverhampton on 10 February 1985 and was a product of Wolves youth academy, where he worked his way up to making his first team debut in a League Cup win over Darlington on 23 September 2003. However, he did not feature at all in the team's Premier League campaign of that season.
After a loan period at Kidderminster in Spring 2004, he made his breakthrough into the Wolves first team in the 2004/05 season. He scored is first goal in a 2-2 draw against Preston on 11 August 2004, and had his most successful time with the club, netting 7 goals from 28 appearances.
During the 2005/06 season his fortunes were mixed, as he benefited from injuries to others in the early part of the season, before slipping down the pecking order later in the season, after new players were signed. He went out on loan twice; first to QPR and then Plymouth.
He played regularly in the first half of the 2006/07 scoring 5 goals from 22 appearances but, in January he was transfer-listed when manager Mick McCarthy said he wanted to "freshen up" the strike force.
On 15 January 2007, Sheffield Wednesday then manager Brian Laws announced that the Owls had completed the signing of Clarke for a fee thought to be around £300,000 signing a contract until 2009. However, only two months later it was announced that Clarke would be going out on loan League One Oldham without even making a starting appearance for Wednesday. In total, Clarke played five games and scored three goals for Oldham. After returning to Hillsborough, he was immediately placed in the first team and scored on his first start in a 2–1 victory against Cardiff. After only one goal and one start in the early stages of the 2007/08 season, he was sent on loan to Southend until January Clarke scored in each of his first five matches and netted 8 goals from 16 appearances.
After returning to his parent club Sheffield Wednesday he was restricted to one start and five substitute appearances for the rest of the 2007/08 season but scored a goal in the last two matches of the season.
In 2008/09 Clarke scored 8 goals from 29 appearances and last season it was 6 goals from 36 matches. This included Clarke scoring the first of Wednesday's two goals in the end of the season relegation battle against Crystal Palace, which could have seen either team relegated from the Championship on 2 May 2010. However in celebrating the goal, he kicked the advertising boarding, dislocating his toe and forcing the striker to be carried off the pitch and subsequently substituted. The game finished 2–2, which saw Wednesday relegated to League One. Three days later it was announced he would not be offered a new contract by former PNE manager Alan Irvine.
He signed for QPR on 21 May 2010 on a 2 year contract but only started in 2 of the 13 matches, one of the two was against PNE, and had not registered a goal for the Hoops before joining PNE for the remainder of the season on loan.
Clarke has played against PNE on ten occasions – Wolves and Sheffield Wednesday four times and one each with Plymouth and QPR, but just with the one goal.
Taking into account all League and Cup matches, Clarke has made 114 plus 102 substitute appearances and scored 44 goals
|
Club |
From |
To |
Fee |
League Apps (Subs) |
League Goals |
Cup Apps (Subs) |
Cup Goals |
|
PRESTON N.E. |
28/01/2011 |
|
Loan |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
|
Q.P.R. |
02/06/2010 |
|
Free |
2 (11) |
0 |
2 |
0 |
|
SOUTHEND |
31/08/2007 |
01/01/2008 |
Loan |
16 (0) |
8 |
0 |
0 |
|
OLDHAM |
01/03/2007 |
01/04/2007 |
Loan |
5 (0) |
3 |
0 |
0 |
|
SHEFF.WED. |
15/01/2007 |
01/06/2010 |
300K |
43 (40) |
18 |
2 (2) |
0 |
|
PLYMOUTH |
23/03/2006 |
01/05/2006 |
Loan |
5 (0) |
0 |
0 |
0 |
|
Q.P.R. |
31/01/2006 |
05/02/2006 |
Loan |
1 (0) |
0 |
0 |
0 |
|
KIDDERMINSTER |
25/03/2004 |
09/05/2004 |
Loan |
3 (1) |
0 |
0 |
0 |
|
WOLVES |
01/07/2003 |
15/01/2007 |
Trainee |
32 (42) |
13 |
3 (6) |
1 |