Rovers have today announced that local defender and Rovers supporter Scott Wharton has penned a new three-year deal at the club which will extend his stay at Ewood Park to June 2024, with the club also holding an option to add an extra year to his contract.
The 23-year old, who by the end of the contract, will see his association with the club hit fourteen – and potentially fifteen – years given he has been at Rovers since the age of 12, has been rewarded with improved terms following his fine form this season, which was sadly cut short due to an Achilles injury he suffered away at Brentford.
The left-footed centre-back, who has totalled up an impressive 98 games in the lower reaches of the EFL, with three promotions from League Two also under his belt, has come on leaps and bounds since making his Rovers debut in August 2016 against Burton Albion and scoring in his second game for the first team, which came in a thrilling 4-3 AET victory over Crewe Alexandra in the EFL Cup.
Following his loan spells with Cambridge United, Lincoln City, Bury and Northampton Town, where he won promotion with the latter trio, Wharton has had to wait patiently to get his opportunity in Tony Mowbray’s team, yet once he came over some niggling injuries which set him back, he became a solid presence within the Rovers backline this campaign just gone, as he impressed manager and fans alike despite the injury cutting his season short.
After being drafted into the side, following a defensive injury crisis that Rovers suffered during the first quarter of the campaign, Wharton’s addition to the squad saw Rovers hit one of their purple patches in the season, as despite only playing 90 minutes on four occasions, Rovers only lost one game in which the defender took to the field in – which was the 3-1 defeat away at Watford – as Wharton only played 23 minutes at Vicarage Road, after coming off the bench to replace an injured Daniel Ayala.
From the eight appearances he made in total, throughout the 2020-21 season, Rovers kept three clean sheets with Wharton in the team, despite winning four of the games – including the EFL Cup win over Doncaster Rovers – and drawing three more, on top of the aforementioned Watford game. The experience that Wharton gained playing ‘mens’ football’ in the lower leagues of the EFL proved to be crucial for his development as his performances alongside Darragh Lenihan left many Rovers fans impressed with their academy graduate.
Following on from extending his time at the club, Wharton reflected on the deal with the club’s media team:
“I’m really happy and delighted to get it done and very grateful to the club for extending my contract for the next few years.
“I know I’m injured now, but I’m looking to get back fit as soon as possible and hit the ground running next season. The injury probably came at the wrong time for me, as I was just getting myself into the team and going on a good unbeaten run when I was playing and I felt like my performances were getting better with each game, so hopefully I can do that again when I’m back fit.
“The club were sending me out on loan to get experience and to get the game time that I needed to eventually try and get into the first team here, so it’s been a lot of hard work over the last few years to get to this position, but I want to keep going and get more games under my belt here at Rovers, so I’m looking forward to the future. There’s no other team that I’d want to play for. This is the team that I support, so I’d love to be here for the next few years. I just want to get back fit and be raring to go.
“It’s been quite a slow rehab so far, but this season seems to have flown by since I picked up the injury, so I’ll be doing all the hard work over the off season and getting myself ready for pre-season and being back involved with the lads.”
