Experienced defender Peter Clarke joins Warrington Town

The veteran centre-back, who has more than 900 professional appearances to his name, becomes Mark Beesley’s third signing of the summer ahead of their first ever National League North campaign.

Clarke, 41, has been training with the team throughout pre-season and has appeared as a trialist in pre-season friendlies.

Now, his signing has been confirmed and he is looking forward to giving the squad the benefit of his experience.

“I’m looking forward to it – any new challenge is always good,” he said.

“I’ve played in games here and I’m aware of the recent history. The club and team have been close but have finally got over the line now which is fantastic.

“It’s new beginnings and a new era for everyone involved, so it’s going to be exciting times and as a new player coming in, it’s an exciting time to be coming on board.

“There’s a lot of new things going on with the club and as a group of players, we want to maintain what has gone before and improve upon it.”

Peter Clarke has played in several pre-season friendlies this summer as a trialist (Image: Karl Vallantine)

Having started his career at Everton, Clarke has gone on to enjoy successful spells at the likes of Huddersfield Town, Tranmere Rovers, Southend United and Oldham Athletic among others.

As recently as the 2021-22 season, he was voted into the League Two Team of the Year for his displays for Tranmere.

Town boss Beesley made clear his delight at securing such a prestigious signing, satisfying his bid to add competition for places in defence alongside promotion-winning centre-back pairing Evan Gumbs and Tom Hannigan.

“It's testament to where the club is at to attract a signing of Peter’s calibre,” he said.

“What he’ll give us in terms of his experience and leadership will be invaluable, but he’s just a quality player aside from that.

“I’ve known him a long time and it’s something we’ve been working on throughout the summer.

“He’s fit and strong so he probably would still be playing professionally, but he got the opportunity of a job within the PFA (Professional Footballer’s Association) that he couldn’t turn down.

“We’ve been the beneficiaries of that – he’s listened to everything we’ve had to say and he’s looking forward to it.

“It’s important we have competition for places, and we had it all over the pitch with the possible exception of centre-back.

“It’s something we were looking at throughout last season – nothing materialised but we got lucky with Evan and Tom being fit pretty much all season.

“With us stepping up a league, we needed that extra bit of quality and now we have three excellent centre-halves.

“There may be games where we play with a three at the back – it’s something we spoke about last summer and it’s definitely in our minds now.”