CLARE WAS A REAL CLASS ACT!
PAUL Bastock has two memories of Daryl Clare, the striker whose goals powered Boston United to promotion in 2002. One is David Gray’s 2001 hit Sail Away. “He’d sing it incessantly,” laughs the legendary Pilgrims goalkeeper. “Even now, it’s etched in my brain. I’ll find myself belting it out in the shower and think ‘Bloody hell, Clarey!”
The other is a dressing-room flashpoint when Steve Evans – never a man to keep his emotions in check – took aim at Clare following a dismal defeat at Scarborough.
“Evans was digging him out, spitting, red in the face, trying to say it was Daryl who’d lost us the game,” says Bastock.
“But Clarey stood up for himself, like he always did. He said ‘Listen, I’ve given my all. I’ve worked my b ****** s off’. Then he picked up this great big water urn – like the ones you see in offices – and launched it straight at Evans.
“Steve ducked, it hit the wall, and bounced off with this enormous crash. To this day I still laugh thinking about it.”
As Bastock wryly adds, though, Evans was pretty much the only thing Clare did miss during a prolific decade in the Non-League game.
A hot prospect at hometown club Grimsby, the forward made his debut at 17, scored twice for the Republic of Ireland’s B team and was even linked with a £500,000 move to Leeds United.
Yet diminishing returns, bad loans and the departure of manager Alan Buckley quashed any such hopes. In April 2001, after 78 appearances for the Mariners, Clare missed a sitter against Tranmere, got hauled off at half-time and never played for the club again.
It would prove the first of several ill-fated flirtations with the EFL. Yet in the Conference, Clare reigned supreme.
Between his arrival at Boston as a 22-year-old in 2001 and his departure from Cambridge United ten years later, the Jersey-born hitman scored 161 goals in 298 games.
During a glorious two-year spell that yielded two titles and two golden boots – with Boston in 2002 and Chester City in 2004 – Clare was almost universally recognised as the finest striker in Non-League football.
“I don’t think there’s any question about that,” says Darryn Stamp, who formed a prolific partnership with Clare at Chester in 2003-04.
“He was accurate. He was consistent. If we did a finishing session after training, he was head and shoulders above anyone else.
“He was a class act, and the whole team knew that if we stayed level, or just kept the score tight, Daryl would take the one chance that came his way.
“Don’t forget – the season we went up, he missed the first ten or fifteen games through injury and still ended up with nearly 30 goals. That tells you how deadly he was.”
Gambling
Like many strikers who prosper in Non-League, Clare was not blessed with outstanding physical attributes.
“His finishing was what set him apart,” adds Stamp. “But as exceptional as that was, he was a very clever player as well. He was constantly on his toes, constantly aware of rebounds. Always gambling on where a ball would bounce. That’s probably why he was the best partner I ever had.
“Once I’d played with him a few games, he knew exactly where I was going to flick it and he was almost there before I’d done it.
“It was the same with opponents. Five minutes into a game, he already knew which defender to pull on to, who would give him a chance on the ball, who could be beaten down the sides. And he’d somehow give me all the big ugly brutes to deal with, so he was clever in that way too!”
Oddly, though, Clare’s talent never translated on to the big stage. At Boston, he provided just one goal in nine Division Three matches before being shipped to Chester in October 2002. At the Deva, seven matches at the higher level also brought a solitary goal. Why?
Banter
“It’s a good question,” says Stamp. “He certainly had the attributes. Personally, I think Mark Wright’s departure as manager had a big impact.
“Mark trusted that group of players, he knew how to maximise it, and a lot of that was about creating chances for Daryl. If he’d stayed, I’m sure he’d have been the focal point.
“Unfortunately, Mark left the day before the season started and we both fell out of favour with Ian Rush. It was weird, because we’d gone from scoring 40-odd goals the year before to running around with bibs on so the first-team could have a practice.”
At Boston, too, Clare clashed with acting manager Neil Thompson, who had taken charge amidst Evans’s infamous departure.
“Daryl was a lovely guy who loved the banter,” says Bastock. “Him and Paul Ellender, they were constantly up to something. But he didn’t suffer fools, Daryl. He knew his own mind. If he wasn’t playing, if he wasn’t being treated properly, he’d say so.
“I think another part of the problem was that he’d gone from teams who were creating loads of chances and dictating games to ones that were basically defending for 90 minutes.
“Technically and ability-wise, he was mustard. Easily good enough for the League. But it was never about money or prestige for Daryl. It was about scoring goals and enjoying his football.
“If that wasn’t happening, he’d go somewhere it would.”
And he did. To Crawley Town, then Burton Albion, helping the part-time Brewers reach the 2008 Play-Offs - the year before they gained promotion.
“Daryl Clare raised the bar for us,” said manager Nigel Clough. “After he came in, we went from strength to strength.”
Today, Clare is passing on his skills as a coach with University Centre Grimsby – thanks to a little help from an old friend.
“I deliver a degree course in Scunthorpe and two years ago Daryl was one of my students,” laughs Stamp. “It was great because I hadn’t seen him for years. It was brilliant to work with him again, and we still had a laugh. They were great times.”