Captain of the Northern Ireland Under-21s and now a full International, Sammy never played for the Wolves first team, but had two extremely successful loan spells at Chesterfield - he was credited as being key to their surprising charge towards the top 6 of League One in the first half of 2005-2006, and certainly they subsided alarmingly down the table once he signed for us. Clingan signed only about a fortnight before Megson resigned.

Mobile, tidy, strong in the tackle and a decent ball player, in his first few games Clingan looked a decent player when fielded in his preferred position in the centre of midfield. At times after Nicky Southall was injured Sammy was asked to fill in on the right, where he didn't look anything like as good.

The Summer of 2006 saw Clingan blossom, with his first full Northern Ireland caps on a tour of the USA and the arrival of Colin Calderwood, who seemed immediately to realise Sammy's talent and to cement him into the centre of midfield. Alas, just as the season was starting to come to a boil, Clingan broke his ankle in early March, thus missing the rest of the season. Since at the time we pretty much no-one else who could do his job, this was a grave blow - though it did at least allow Lewis McGugan (an entirely different sort of player) to stake his claim with an extended run in the side.