Junior Hoops player Kyle White signs a Professional contract with League one side Fleetwood Town FC.
Today is a special day for JHFC, three years ago the club was set up to help develop a pathway into senior football for Grassroots players and this year has seen former Junior Hoops player Kyle White sign a Professional contract with League one side Fleetwood Town FC.
Kyle has played Grassroots football since he was 5 starting under the guidance of current Junior Hoops u7 Coach Ian Harrison who put together a side consisting of no fewer than 3 current Pro Players. He then went on to play for his dad for a few years with cameo appearances for Brian Carpenter and a season with Michael Fogarty. In this time Kyle was asked to train with all the top pro clubs but always turned it down preferring to stay with his mates at grassroots.
At 13/14 Kyles form took a dip and although he was still a top grass roots player he was no longer sought after by big clubs. At 15 Kyle took the plunge and signed for Jeff Jones at Darwen whilst playing for Junior Hoops on a Saturday and started once again to tear it up wherever he played. It was whilst playing for JHFC he was noticed by Blackpool and Nick Grindley who kept in touch after that game and took Kyle to Blackpool FC. In the meantime Jeff had built a top side at Darwen and they won the Lancashire County Cup.
Whilst on a 6 week trial at Blackpool Kyle scored a number of goals and did really well but was told he wasn’t what they were looking for and he was a bit slow. They released him to the surprise of Nick Gridley and again the Blackpool scout kept in touch.
AFC Darwen had a great U17 side including Kyle but the whole team was overlooked by their first team manager and when the Darwen U17 finished and folded Kyle was snapped up by AFC Blackpool.
As soon as he turned 16 Kyle was given his official debut by Sean Pearson at Haslingden St Marys and he did well adapting to adults football. This experience of playing for St Marys gave Kyle the platform to step up to the North West Counties with AFC Blackpool. AFC manager Martin Baird showed great faith in Kyle (and other youngsters) and the club were responsible for helping Kyle get a move to Fleetwood.
During his journey so far the over riding comments that have proceeded the fact he is a fine player is the amount of comments that have been made about his character.
Kyle is a fine young man and a credit to Junior Hoops FC we wish him all the best at the start of his exciting journey.
