Brothers in arms maybe deserved more time to shine while at Terriers

YOU don’t get many families where two siblings have a special skill in the same area.

Usually when you are young and you spot that your elder brother has a flair for mountain climbing you look for something else to be good at rather than compete with him.

But there are exceptions. Locally we have seen the Brownlee brothers running, riding and swimming successfully against each other.

And in football we don’t need to go back to Arsenal’s Compton brothers to find gifted relatives. There were, of course, the Charlton brothers, Jack and Bobby.

More recently we have had the Neville brothers, Gary and Phil.

But Town fans will remember fondly the Clarke brothers, Nathan and Tom. Nathan, the elder by four years, made his centre-back debut in 2001 at the age of 17 in a 1-1 draw against Stoke. He went on to make 37 starts during that season.

Nathan played under eight different managers at Town and was in the starting 11 for each one.

In 2005 and 2006 he was selected in FourFourTwo magazine’s Top 50 Football League Players. One of his real highlights was the winning goal against Leeds United in February, 2009.

On January 27, 2011, after failing to feature often in Lee Clark’s team, he joined Colchester United on loan until the end of the season and then, in August, went to Oldham on a five-month loan deal.

In March he joined Bury on loan for the remainder of the season. He played a big part in the Shakers’ league survival that year. Nathan finally left Town in June 2012 after playing more than 300 games.

His time at Town was clearly drawing to a close, although it was hard to see two better centre-backs in the blue and white stripes.

In an interview for Leyton Orient, Nathan reflected on his move south: “It wasn’t so much difficult to leave Huddersfield, more strange really.

“It was something that possibly I should have done a little bit sooner to go out and experience something a little bit different. “I think you can be at a club too long and possibly that was the case for me.”

Nathan signed a two-year deal with Orient and was immediately made club captain. Having been named the club’s Player of the Year he was a key figure in the team that

I think you can be at a club too long and possibly that was

the case for me