Derby County’s £1m signing ended in frustration after contract conundrum | OneFootball

The Rams' financial issues stopped them from seeing more of Luke Varney during his time with the club

Luke Varney must have lived out of a suitcase for much of his playing career, with the EFL nomad featuring for as many as eleven different clubs across the top four tiers during his 18-year stint as a professional.

Some clubs got a season or two out of the striker, some clubs got a game or two, but regardless of where he was playing his football, he was always potent when given the opportunity in front of goal.

Derby County will likely have to take other people’s words for that, with the Rams only seeing the frontman play 12 times for them as his loan spell was made permanent from Charlton Athletic back in the winter of 2009.

His spell at Pride Park would prove to be a frustrating one for Varney at the time, with a contract clause stopping him from living life to the full after joining County.

Luke Varney’s move to Derby County hindered by contract scenario

Having worked his way up from non-league Quorn to Charlton Athletic, via Crewe Alexandra, Varney earned a reputation as something of a hotshot in his early playing days, with the Addicks forking out a reported £2 million to bring him to the Valley in the summer of 2007.

But after little more than a season in south London, the striker was on the move once again. Despite playing 18 league games for his current employers up until November, a loan stint at Derby was agreed until the end of the year, with the deal turning permanent on January 1.

Things hadn’t worked out with Charlton, and it wouldn’t be long before the same happened at Pride Park, although things were slightly more out of Varney’s control second time around.

One goal in seven games before the move turned permanent hardly set the world alight, but the striker’s movement and work rate could never be questioned, with his solitary goal for the Rams coming in a 2-1 defeat to Crystal Palace.

New Year’s Day comes and goes, Varney is a permanent County player after a reported £1 million deal, and things seemed to be progressing as normal, until they weren't.

Just three weeks after signing on the dotted line, Nigel Clough was replaced by Paul Jewell, meaning his season came to a close after playing for a third different Championship club in Sheffield Wednesday, whom he joined on loan for the final two months of the campaign.

The summer then came and went, and things seem to be progressing as normal, with Varney featuring in two of the Rams’ first games of the 09/10 campaign, before Hillsborough came calling again, this time for the whole season.

Luke Varney finally forces Derby County exit

Another year in Yorkshire followed, but Varney was still on County’s books, and must have been pining for a permanent exit by the summer of 2010, but he still had a year left on his contract.

His annual handful of games for Derby at the start of the season followed - this time restricted to just one solitary appearance - before this time being shipped out to Premier League side Blackpool on loan, with Rams fans likely perplexed as to what their employee had done wrong to not be worthy of game time at Pride Park.

Nothing, it turned out, apart from actually play matches. That was deemed to be the issue, with County unwilling to Charlton another £500,000 if Varney played ten games for the club, resulting in the rigmarole that unfolded over the next three years.

“There obviously was never problem with myself and my talent. I was stuck not playing because of Derby’s financial situation,” Varney said after agreeing a move to Portsmouth in the summer of 2011.

“I’m glad at the end of the day and I’m just pleased now to have cut my ties with Derby.”

That second line must have been something of an understatement, with Varney’s three years of personal imprisonment coming to an end, he was a man free of the shackles that the Rams had put on him.

Saying that, a life of short-term moves and loan spells continued to pepper his career. Maybe all that time as a County player gave him the taste for a hotel breakfast, who knows.