Joe Ward

Joe Ward scored his first Championship goal for Derby on 16 August 2025, though it came in a 3–5 home defeat to Coventry City.

Injuries have run through his time at the club. A heel problem in August 2023 kept him out for eight weeks, and in April 2024 a knee injury needed surgery and ended his first season early. A second knee operation in January 2025 cost him seven months. Between the two he was still a regular contributor: in March 2024 he set up two goals in a 3–0 win over Port Vale. Derby finished that League One season as runners-up and went up automatically. His December that year was harder, when he conceded penalties in consecutive games against Wycombe Wanderers and Lincoln City.

Derby signed him on a free transfer from Peterborough United, where he arrived from Woking in January 2018. At Peterborough he became a key player and was part of the side promoted to the Championship in 2020–21. He was also named in the EFL League One Team of the Season that year.

The route there was not direct. Brighton & Hove Albion took him on a development contract in 2015 after trials, but he made no league appearance for them. A loan at Lincoln City in January 2017 brought two league appearances and two goals in the FA Trophy. Brighton released him, and Woking signed him.

Ward has one cap for England C, coming on after 45 minutes of the International Challenge Trophy final against Slovakia U21s in November 2017. England C lost 4–0.