{"id":25375,"date":"2026-06-05T08:30:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-05T08:30:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/25375\/"},"modified":"2026-06-05T08:30:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T08:30:11","slug":"defender-dench-makes-glory-homecoming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/25375\/","title":{"rendered":"Defender Dench makes Glory homecoming"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Perth Glory is delighted to announce that 22-year-old defender Matt Dench has joined the club on a two-year deal.<\/p>\n<p>The Perth local played his junior football for Perth RedStar and the PGFC Academy before spending five years on the books of current English Championship side, Charlton Athletic.<\/p>\n<p>After returning to Australia in 2025, the left-footer\u2019s stellar form for Oakleigh Cannons in the NPL Victoria earned him a move to Brisbane Roar for whom he made 12 A-League appearances and scored one goal last season.<\/p>\n<p>Dench is now looking forward to taking the next step on his football journey in the famous purple.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cComing through the youth ranks and looking up to some of the players that are still here is amazing and it\u2019s great to be here,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is my boyhood club, so it means that much more to me to play here and hopefully go far this season.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe thing that excites me most is where we can go this year with the team that we\u2019ve got.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI just think the fans should be as excited as I am to do well this year.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSuccess this year for me would look like firstly making the top six and secondly, on a personal level, playing well, starting as many games as I can and helping the team to do well.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s been a big dream of mine for a long time to play for this team in the A-League and I\u2019m really looking forward to being part of what\u2019s to come.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Glory Football Director Stan Lazaridis believes that Dench will prove to be an excellent addition to the squad.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMatt is a local Perth boy who is extremely mature for his age and determined to do well,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe\u2019s been toughened up by five years away in the UK and is a player that we\u2019ve been keeping tabs on for some time.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMatt will provide competition for the left-back slot, but can also operate on the left of midfield and he really fits the profile of player that we are looking to bring in.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re delighted to have him on board.<\/p>\n<p>Further squad announcements will be made shortly.<\/p>\n<p>#ONEGlory<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Perth Glory is delighted to announce that 22-year-old defender Matt Dench has joined the club on a two-year&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25376,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[341,23378,335,348],"class_list":["post-25375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-perth","tag-a-league","tag-matt-dench","tag-perth","tag-perth-glory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25375\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}