Released Blues defender Bailey Clements’s move to Paul Cook’s Chesterfield is close to being confirmed.

News that the 21-year-old was a target of his former Town manager emerged last week and, according to the Derbyshire Times, the National League Spireites are now closing in on completing the signing.

We understand Chesterfield haven’t been the only club interested in the academy product, who left the Blues at the end of last season having been with the club since he was seven.

Last night, the former Northgate High School said his goodbyes and thanked everyone at Town on social media.

Clements made eight starts and one sub appearance for the Town first team, including four League One games during 2021/22.

The left-back or centre-half, who spent the second half of last season on loan at Stevenage, having previously had spells with Hemel Hempstead and Dagenham & Redbridge.

Photo: TWTD

markchips added 10:23 - Jun 17 Good luck to him. Unfortunately we need much better to get out of this division. Under previous ownership he may have played more regularly .
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Europablue added 10:43 - Jun 17 It's a mystery to me that we have all of these academy players who play in our first team and then struggle to play anywhere near the same level again. At the start of last season, he was the next big thing. It must take a great mental toll to be so up and down all the time. Good luck to him.
4

Linkboy13 added 10:57 - Jun 17 Unfortunately not up to the physical demands of league one football but if he can beef up a bit he could still play at a decent level.
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blues1 added 11:18 - Jun 17 Europablue. It's even that way for a long time. And it's not just at our club neither. Happens everywhere. A player looks promising, even like he may be the next best thing to come through the ranks. But thrn fail to make that final step. Probably the perfect examples from our club are Dean Bowditch and Josh Carson. They just 2 of a number of players tho. Think our biggest issue in the last 10 or so years tho, is we always seem to have very small players. So when they reach the 1st team they're simply not tall enough or strong enough to make that jump up. Maybe in time they would be, but not sure we have that time to wait to see if they do develop.

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Bazza8564 added 12:26 - Jun 17 The harsh reality of Academy football is that you have to develop 30 to get maybe two who will make it at any level and probably one in 75 will be good enough at premier level. We are lucky now that Wolfy, Elkan and Humphreys are all hopefully going to be in our squad for a while but so many more will fall by the wayside, and of those three, who can tell if any of them will make it all the way. Sadly its the way of the world.

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ringwoodblue added 14:53 - Jun 17 Why would anyone want go and play for Paul Cook? He seems to worsen the teams he manages rather than improve them.
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Linkboy13 added 20:20 - Jun 17 Yes Bazza8564 under one percent of youngsters make it to professional level that's across the whole of the football league. It makes you wonder if it's really profitable to run an academy when you see what Brentford have done without one. We tend to buy players that have come through other clubs academies than produce our own.
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OliveR16 added 21:38 - Jun 17 The Academy is more about the reach and ethos of the Club than producing lots of first team players. It creates goodwill, networking opportunities and, unlike Brentford in West London, does something for young footballers in a whole county. Any first teamers it produces are a bonus rather than a necessity - those days are long gone.
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