Three more promising youngsters have signed professional contracts, set to run from the 1st of July.
Djair Parfitt-Williams, Alex Pike, and Kyle Knoyle have all signed deals in the past few days and both the club and fans are pleased for them.
It’s always good to see promising talent awarded contracts. Quite a lot of the academy have already signed deals. Reece Burke, Emmanuel Onariase and Jordan Brown have already signed their terms whilst Tim Brown has been offered an extension to his scholarship.
Bermudan Djair Parfitt-Williams has established himself as one of the brightest academy talents after being scouted by none other than Bermudan Hammers legend Clyde Best himself whilst Parfitt-Williams was playing for San Jose Earthquakes.
MORE: Read our Prospect Profile on talented forward Djair Parfitt-Williams here.
The promising player was invited to a trial and three years on the small attacker has become an established member of the Development Squad. He finished the season with nine U18 goals, the top scorer, capped off with another two for the U21s.
Defender Alex Pike has also established himself as a regular in both U18 and U21 sides. Injury disrupted the first part of his scholarship, restricting him to 13 appearances, but this season he appeared a total of 33 times at both levels.
Pike has had a phenomenal season, with some excellent defensive displays in the first part leading him to becoming a regular fixture in the U21 team. Usually playing at right-back, this season he has occasionally been converted into the centre-back role, where he has impressed there.
MORE: We interviewed Alex Pike about how he’s doing at the club, check it out.
Finally, there’s another right back in England U18 international Kyle Knoyle. A fast, pacy full back never afraid to attack, Knoyle has had injury disrupting a part of this season. Knoyle made 19 league appearances for the U18s last season and this season he made 10 appearances for the U18s plus a further 7 for the U21s.
The ankle injury that he sustained in October has of course, halted his progress somewhat in terms of game time, but he has displayed some magnificent showings that ended up in him being awarded this professional contract.
The contracts are two years long, keeping all the youngsters with the club until the summer of 2017. These three are proof that the club is and always has been producing talent. To all the naysayers that say the academy isn’t as good as it anymore, watch U21 games, watch U18 games, even watch below that.
Yes, maybe sometimes the results aren’t the best ones but that’s not the point. We’ve got so many talented players in our academy coming through which should make us all realise that in some cases, we don’t need to spend our money on these other fancy players, we should look to the academy for pure home-grown talent.
