Robbie Blake

Robert James Blake (born 4 March 1976) is an English former professional footballer and current men’s first team manager at Bognor Regis Town.

He began his career as a striker but was increasingly used as midfielder in the latter part of his career.

He began his professional career with Darlington in 1994 and went on to make more than 500 appearances in the Football League and Premier League playing for Bradford City, Nottingham Forest, Burnley, Birmingham City, Leeds United, Bolton Wanderers and Doncaster Rovers.

Blake was the subject of many transfers throughout his career, with career total transfer fees reaching £3.6 million.

Born in Middlesbrough, England, Blake began his professional football career at Division Three side Darlington in the 1994–95 season after signing on from the youth academy.

He spent the first few seasons of his career playing at Feethams, and also was loaned out to Waterford United during the 1995–96 season, making some 68 league appearances and scoring 21 goals before the club received an offer, from then Division One side, Bradford City in March 1997.

Bradford made a £300,000 offer for the player which Darlington accepted.

Blake quickly settled into the Bradford side and he scored eight goals in his first full season, first under Chris Kamara and then Paul Jewell.

He was sent off in the final game of the 1997–98 season against Portsmouth meaning he was suspended for the start of the following season.

But he forced his way back into the team and scored in his first game back in a 2–2 draw with Sheffield United.

He and new signing Lee Mills forged a lethal partnership in attack sharing 40 goals.

Blake scored 16 goals as City won promotion to the Premiership.

Blake scored the winning goal in the final game against Wolverhampton Wanderers of the 1998–99 season to see his side finish the season as league runners-up.

However the following season was harder for Blake and he struggled to make an impact in the Premiership, starting just 15 games for Bradford, with a further 12 played as a substitute.

The next season at Valley Parade began much differently for Blake after being sent on loan to Division One side Nottingham Forest for two months, scoring once against Barnsley.

Following his 2-month loan spell at Forest he returned to Bradford where he finished the season with four goals from his 14 starts in the 2000–01 season with Bradford ultimately being relegated to Division One.

During the summer of 2001 former loan club Nottingham Forest made an undisclosed bid for the player which was rejected.

Following the failed transfer bid Forest manager David Platt said;

"The offer was turned down, and as no further finance is available, we must assume the deal is dead" – David Platt

This was not the last transfer offer Bradford would receive as just a few months later on 25 January 2002 the club received a £1 million transfer bid from fellow Division One side Burnley and, due to Bradford's poor financial status, the club had no option but to sell the player.

Blake signed a three-year contract with the Clarets but did not feature much in the remaining six months of the season due to a hernia injury.

In his second season at Burnley Blake was the club's top scorer with 22 goals in all competitions from 46 games.

That summer, long time Burnley manager Stan Ternent left the club and was replaced by Steve Cotterill and under the new manager Blake continued his prolific goal scoring with 13 goals in the run up to the January transfer window.

When the transfer window opened Blake was subject of multiple bids by Premiership clubs, all of which were rejected (at first).

Several bids were made by Wigan Athletic who had offers of £500,000 and £600,000 rejected.

Following the failed bids Wigan manager Paul Jewell said;

"The position is that we made an offer for him and it's been turned down, it's as simple as that" – Paul Jewell

Wigan later made a third for the player, a revised figure of £700,000.

Again the Burnley board turned down this offer and no further bids were made by the Latics.

In his final game of his first spell at Burnley he scored what is possibly the best goal of his Burnley career leathering in a stunning free kick from 35 yards in a local derby against Preston North End.

Eventually a successful bid of £1.25 million was made by Birmingham City and Blake once again had a chance to prove himself in the top league.

Blake made his debut for Birmingham in the FA Cup against Leeds United on 8 January 2005 as a second-half substitute.

Blake was confident that he could push for a starting place at Birmingham saying:

"Clinton Morrison and Emile Heskey have done fantastically well, but hopefully I can push them for a place. I can play in a few positions, behind the strikers or dropping deep, and that gives the gaffer some selections to think about. I thought if anything a bottom four team in the Premiership would come in for me but Birmingham, with the quality of players they have, was an even bigger bonus."

– Robbie Blake

In an interview with BBC Sport.

Blake's hopes did not materialise, he went on to play just 11 games for the club and only scored two goals.

During the summer of that year Birmingham confirmed that they had received an offer from Leeds United for Blake:

"We have had an offer from Leeds for Robbie Blake. We are considering it and talks are ongoing. Robbie has done very well for us, but he feels he wants to play more and at Leeds he would probably play every week" – Steve Bruce

Blake did not travel with his teammates on the pre-season tour as he was still in negotiations with Leeds and he was eventually signed for £800,000.