The Peterborough Evening Telegraph
Jonson joins an elite group as the vultures start circling
Posh - 25 goals for the ace marksman
Top scorer Jonson ClarkeHarris joined an elite group of Posh strikers when reaching 25 Football League goals for the season with a hat-trick in last weekend’s 7-0 romp over Accrington Stanley at the Weston Homes Stadium.
And that form has inevitably attracted the attention of bigger clubs as Posh director of football Barry Fry revealed this week the club had turned down many offers for the 26 year-old forward in January and they are expecting to have to fend off even more interest in the summer, writes Alan Swann
Fry was responding to various reports in the past few days linking Clarke-Harris to Scottish champions Rangers, Premier League strugglers Sheffield United and West Brom, and Championship side Bournemouth.
Posh signed Clarke-Harris fromBristol Rovers for close to a million pounds in the summer. He signed a four-year contract.
Fry said: “There were several Championship clubs chasing Jonson in January and Bournemouth were the most persistent.
“We had several offers for the player, but we turned them down flat, even though we could probably have got five times what we paid for him. We want promotion this season so there’s no way we would have let him go.
“Rangers have been to a lot of our matches this season and they were there on Saturday. Sheffield United were also there, but West Brom weren’t. I didn’t have a conversation about Jonson with any of them though.
“Luckily Jonson is singleminded and his focus is entirely on winning promotion with us.
“It was the same situation with Ivan Toney last season. He wanted to go in January , we refused as we wanted promotion and he knuckled down to play superbly for us.
“I expect Jonson to behave in exactly the same way as he’s a very humble man.”
Only six players have reached 25 Football League goals in a single season for Posh.
Terry Bly managed it twice in the first two League seasons in the early 1960s and he has been followed by Peter Price, Aaron Mclean, Craig MackailSmith and most recently Jack Marriott. Toney was robbed of his chance of joining that select group as he was stranded on 24 League One goals when the 2019-20 season was ended nine games early.
The next target for ClarkeHarris is 30 goals in a League season. Only Bly has previously reached that number, for the all-conquering Fourth Division title-winning side of 1960-61.
But Clarke-Harris has consistently said he signed for Posh to win promotion rather than set goalscoring records.
“It is great to get to 25 goals in the league with nine games to play,” Clarke-Harris said.
“It wasn’t about coming here and trying to eclipse Ivan Toney because he is an outstanding player and has ripped it up in the Championship. It was about me coming here and making a difference to the team and hopefully I have done that.
“For me it is great to be the one who is in the box to score the goals, but this is a team game and it is all about getting the three points.
“I didn’t feel I was man-ofthe-match against Accrington as that was Sammie Szmodics.
“However, I am happy where I am at in terms of the goals I have scored so far.
The 25 goal Posh men 52 Terry Bly (1960-61) 29 Terry Bly (1961-62) 28 Peter Price (1971-72) 29 Aaron Mclean (2007-08) 27 Craig-Mackail-Smith (10/11)
27 Jack Marriott (2017-18).
Clarke-Harris has also become just the sixth player in Posh history to score two hattricks in the same Football League season.
Bly managed it six times in 1960-61 (including two lots of four goals in a game) and Price (1971-72), Jim Hall (1972-73), Robbie Cooke (198182) and Mclean (2007-08) also achieved an impressive feat.
Clarke-Harris is now three goals clear of his nearest challenger for the 2020-21 League One Golden Boot, Charlie Wyke of Sunderland.
Marriott and Toney are recent Posh winners of that prize. Mackail-Smith also won it in the last Posh League One promotion season in 2010-11.