Player Profile

Steve Clarke signed for Saints as an S-form in 1979 following a bizarre mix-up by the Saints backroom team. Due to play a friendly against Beith Juniors, the Saints squad duly turned up at the small Bellsdale park for the match-A week too early!!!!!!
Many of the Beith players were not present and so the fifteen year old Steve was asked to help make up the numbers! After an impressive display, he was offered terms at Love Street and following eighteen months on the ground staff and a season back playing with Beith, he made his debut against Ayr United in August 1982.
He was to become one of Saints most consistent performers of the eighties, but the highlight of his first season was playing in the Scotland U-19 squad which reached the quarter finals of the world cup. He nearly caused a riot during one of the group matches in the Aztec stadium in front of 100,000 football mad Mexicans, when he scored the only goal against the Host nation to eliminate them from the competition! For the rest of the match they had to dodge bottles thrown by the Mexican fans.
Back in the safer environs of Scotland, Steve was rapidly becoming an accomplished defender, playing anywhere across the back four, and regularly in midfield. In season 1983-84, he had the chance to show his worth when faced with a twin strike force of Johan Cruyff and Ruud Gullit, when Feyenoord came to Love Street. Steve was tremendous and kept them at bay for most of the match, until a deflected shot by Gullitt gave the Dutch a 1-0 win.
By this time Steve was catching the eye of many clubs and had won eight U-21 caps for Scotland and played in the 1983 and 1984 Scottish cup semi finals. It was no surprise when in late 1986 Celtic and Chelsea tabled bids to recruit Steve for their team and Chelsea made the successful bid of £400,000 to take him south. In his time in Paisley Steve made 194 appearances for Saints and scored six goals, half of them coming in the space of seven weeks during Feb/March 1986!
Steve was to spend twelve years at Stamford Bridge and clocked up over 380 outings, many as team captain. He was to link up with his old adversary Ruud Gullitt when the Dutchman became Chelsea boss. The highlights of his time in London were winning the FA Cup in 1997 and captaining the team to a 1-0 victory over Stuttgart in the 1998 Cup Winners Cup final.
He joined Newcastle in 1999 as assistant to Ruud Gullitt.