{"id":553331,"date":"2026-04-27T13:30:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-27T13:30:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/553331\/"},"modified":"2026-04-27T13:30:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-27T13:30:08","slug":"sam-vokes-former-wales-striker-to-retire-at-end-of-current-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/553331\/","title":{"rendered":"Sam Vokes: Former Wales striker to retire at end of current season"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Vokes started his professional career with Bournemouth but joined Wolverhampton Wanderers in 2008.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He scored eight goals across all competitions in his debut campaign at Molineux as Wolves gained promotion to the Premier League.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The forward went on to have loan spells with Leeds United, Bristol City, Sheffield United, Norwich City, Burnley and Brighton &amp; Hove Albion before securing a permanent switch to Burnley in 2012.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He was part of two promotion-winning squads at Turf Moor &#8211; helping Sean Dyche&#8217;s side reach the Premier League in 2014 and 2016.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The frontman spent seven years with the Clarets before having two campaigns with Stoke City in the Championship.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Vokes left the Potters to join Wycombe Wanderers in 2021 and then signed for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/sport\/football\/teams\/gillingham\" class=\"ssrcss-1fqyhkk-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Gillingham<\/a> in the summer of 2025 &#8211; scoring three times in 35 appearances for the fourth tier side this season.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Vokes, a Southampton fan, added: &#8220;I remember watching my team, the Saints, down at The Dell, dreaming of one day making just one appearance in professional football.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Never did I dream I would be fortunate enough to have played across all four divisions and represent some amazing clubs.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Vokes started his professional career with Bournemouth but joined Wolverhampton Wanderers in 2008. He scored eight goals across&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":553332,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[218,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-553331","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-football","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553331","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=553331"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553331\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/553332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=553331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=553331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=553331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}