Ebbsfleet United have today added the hugely experienced Joe Martin from Stevenage to the ranks for 2021/22.

The 32-year-old left-sided defender is a former England youth international who started out in West Ham’s youth side, where his father Alvin had made almost 600 appearances.

After signing professional terms at Tottenham Hotspur in 2007, Martin made his senior debut in the Championship with Blackpool in 2007/08, playing more than 20 games for the club at that level.

A move to Gillingham in 2010 earned him his first honours as he appeared 38 times in the season the Gills won the League Two title in 2012/13, when he also earned a place in the PFA League Two Team of the Year.

He spent the next two seasons in League One at Priestfield and then enjoyed another two years at the same level with Millwall. He made it to two play-offs with the London club, clinching another promotion in 2016/17 as the Lions ascended into the Championship.

Having also played for Bristol Rovers on loan, his latest two clubs have been Northampton Town and either side of those, two spells with Stevenage. In 2019/20, Martin was part of the Northampton squad that defeated his namesake and new Fleet teammate Lee Martin’s Exeter in the play-off final, thereby achieving a third promotion.

Martin, who boasts a career total of almost 400 games in the EFL and has scored 16 goals from a left-back position, told the club website, “Ebbsfleet appealed to me, it feels like a club on the up. I want to help this year, that’s the only aim and it was important to come to a club that’s only going to rise, to get back up to where it should be and who knows after that, even further.”

Picture supplied by Ed Boyden Photos.