 Clarke talking in 2016 | |||
| Personal information | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Date of birth | 11 September 1970 | ||
| International career | |||
| Years | Team | Apps | (Gls) |
| England | |||
David Philip Clarke [1] OBE (born 11 September 1970) is an English former footballer, whose career spanned 17 years from 1995 to 2012, for the England and Great Britain blind football team. [2] He is currently the Chief Executive of Paralympics GB [3] . He attended New College Worcester, a school for the blind and visually impaired.
Clarke made 144 international appearances scoring 128 goals. [4]
He was part of the British team which finished fifth in the 5-a-side at the 2008 Summer Paralympics. [2] [5] and he was selected as the Stadium torch bearer for the 2012 Summer Paralympics, where he was the first person to receive the torch in the Stadium, and passed it to the final torch bearer. [6] He was a member of the 2012 Summer Paralympic blind-five-a-side Team GB football team. [6]
The following year he was guest of honour at the 2013 FA Cup Final between Manchester City and Wigan Athletic and handed the trophy over to his hometown team Wigan Athletic. He was inducted into the English Football Hall of Fame in September 2013.[ citation needed ] Clarke received a lifetime achievement award at the FA England football awards in February 2013 and received an honorary doctorate from the University of Hertfordshire in November 2013.
Clarke was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2023 Birthday Honours for services to Paralympic sport. [7]
Wigan Athletic Football Club is an English professional football club based in Wigan, Greater Manchester, England, that competes in the EFL League One, the third tier of English football, following relegation from the 2022–23 EFL Championship.
The 2012 Summer Paralympics, branded as the London 2012 Paralympic Games, were an international multi-sport parasports event held from 29 August to 9 September 2012 in London, England, United Kingdom. They were the 14th Summer Paralympic Games as organised by the International Paralympic Committee (IPC).
David Gerald Unsworth is an English football coach and former professional footballer who was most recently the manager of Oldham Athletic. Prior to this, he was academy director and under-23s head coach at Premier League side Everton.
Shaun Richard Maloney is a Scottish football coach, who is the current manager of Wigan Athletic, and former player. Maloney played for Celtic, Aston Villa, Wigan Athletic, Chicago Fire, Hull City and the Scotland national team as an attacking midfielder or winger.
Rachel Aba Yankey, OBE is an English former footballer who played for the England national team. She played as a left winger or forward. She left Arsenal after 13 years in December 2016 at the end of her contract. She is ranked among the Arsenal Ladies Legends.
James McFarlane McArthur is a Scottish former professional footballer who played as a central midfielder.
Peter Robert Norfolk OBE is a British wheelchair tennis player. Following a motorbike accident which left him paraplegic, he uses a wheelchair. He took up tennis and following a further spinal complication in 2000, he began competing in the quad division. He is nicknamed The Quadfather.
Elizabeth Clegg, is a Scottish Paralympic sprinter and tandem track cyclist who has represented both Scotland and Great Britain at international events. She represented Great Britain in the T12 100m and 200m at the 2008 Summer Paralympics, winning a silver medal in the T12 100m race. She won Gold in Rio at the 2016 Paralympic Games in 100m T11 where she broke the world record and T11 200m, beating the previous Paralympic record in the process, thus making her a double Paralympic champion.
Anthony Gerard Larkin is an English former professional footballer, and manager and coach of the England blind football team, which is based at the Royal National College for the Blind in Hereford. Larkin is also the former head of sport and recreation at the college, as well as Patron of the disability sports charity British Blind Sport.
Nicholas Edward Powell is an English professional footballer who plays as an attacking midfielder or as a striker for Stockport County.
Great Britain competed at the 2012 Summer Paralympics in London, United Kingdom, from 29 August to 9 September 2012 as the host nation. A total of 288 athletes were selected to compete along with 13 other team members such as sighted guides. The country finished third in the medals table, behind China and Russia, winning 120 medals in total; 34 gold, 43 silver and 43 bronze. Multiple medallists included cyclist Sarah Storey and wheelchair athlete David Weir, who won four gold medals each, and swimmer Stephanie Millward who won a total of five medals. Storey also became the British athlete with the most overall medals, 22, and equal-most gold medals, 11, in Paralympic Games history.
The Great Britain women's Olympic football team represents the United Kingdom in the women's football tournament at the Olympic Games. Normally, no team represents the whole of the United Kingdom in women's football, as separate teams represent England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
The 2013 FA Cup final was an association football match between Manchester City and Wigan Athletic on 11 May 2013 at Wembley Stadium in London, England, organised by the Football Association (FA). It marked the 132nd final of the Football Association Challenge Cup, the world's oldest football cup competition. It was Wigan's first FA Cup final and Manchester City's tenth. En route to the final, Manchester City defeated Watford, Stoke City, Leeds United, Barnsley and Chelsea; Wigan Athletic beat Bournemouth, Macclesfield Town, Huddersfield Town, Everton and Millwall.
Hannah Lucy Cockroft is a British wheelchair racer specialising in sprint distances in the T34 classification. She holds the world records for the 100 metres, 200 metres, 400 metres, 800 metres and 1500 metres in her classification and the Paralympic records at 100 metres, 200 metres, 400 metres and 800 metres. Competing for Great Britain at the 2012 Summer Paralympics, she won two gold medals. She won three further gold medals at the 2016 Summer Paralympics in Rio de Janeiro.
David John Smith is a Paralympian who made his Paralympic debut on the British boccia team that won the gold medal at the 2008 Summer Paralympics. He competed for Great Britain at the 2012 Summer Paralympics and did so winning Bronze in the Team BC1–2. and Silver in the BC1 individual event watched by a record Boccia crowd at the Excel arena. David competed for Paralympics GB for a third time in Rio where he won Gold in the individual BC1 event for the first time in his career. David held the 'triple crown' of major tournament wins following his win at the World Championships in Liverpool 2018 until the World Championships in Rio 2022 where he claimed Silver. David is now the holder of three Paralympic Gold Medals, after winning at the 2020 Tokyo Paralympics, making him the most decorated British Boccia player in history and the first BC1 to defend a Paralympic title, He was selected to carry the GB flag in the Tokyo 2020 closing ceremony.
Bethany Charlotte Firth, is a Northern Irish Paralympic swimmer. Since 2014 she has competed for Great Britain; previously, Firth had represented Ireland. A six time Paralympic gold medalist, she has won gold in her specialist event - the 100 metres backstroke - for both Ireland at the 2012 Summer Paralympics and Great Britain at the 2016 and 2020 Summer Paralympics. These were in addition to the Mixed 4 x 100 metres freestyle relay S14 at the 2020 Games, and 200 metres medley and 200 metres freestyle for Great Britain at the 2016 Games, where she was the nation's most successful Paralympian with three golds and a silver medal. She competes in the S14 classification for athletes with an intellectual impairment.
Neil Michael Fachie is a Scottish cyclist and former track athlete, competing in events for people with a visual impairment. Fachie has competed in two Paralympics, as a sprinter in the 2008 Games in Beijing and as a tandem cyclist in London 2012. In London he won the gold medal in the Men's individual 1 km time trial and silver in the individual sprint, both with Barney Storey as his sighted pilot. Outside of the Paralympic Games, Fachie is a nineteen-time world champion and 5 times Commonwealth Games champion, creating tandem partnerships with Barney Storey, Pete Mitchell, and Olympians Craig MacLean and Matt Rotherham.
Gordon James Reid is a British professional wheelchair tennis player. He was ranked world No. 1 in singles and world No. 1 in doubles. He is a Paralympic gold, silver, and bronze medalist, two-time Grand Slam singles champion, and twenty-two time Grand Slam doubles champion.
Great Britain and Northern Ireland competed, under the name Great Britain, at the 2016 Summer Paralympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from 7 September to 18 September 2016. The first places for which the team qualified were for six athletes in sailing events.
Dame Elizabeth Mary Nicholl is a British sports administrator and former netball player. She served as chief executive of UK Sport from 2010 to 2019, and is the current president of World Netball.
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