It is a warm afternoon at Luton Town’s training ground and George Moncur, Dan Potts, Pelly-Ruddock Mpanzu, Marek Stech and Elliot Lee are all reflecting on their youth days at West Ham United. They burst into laughter as Stech explains why he was no longer able to play for the first team.



Stech joined the Hammers from Sparta Prague as a promising young goalkeeper in 2006 and having honed his skills under West Ham’s former goalkeeping coach Ludek Miklosko, he made his debut for the first team in 2010 in a League Cup tie against Oxford United. But nine years on, Stech still remembers the moment he was effectively told he had no future at the club due to a clause in his contract.



“I played three cup games for West Ham against Oxford, Sunderland and Stoke and after that, Karren Brady (West Ham’s vice-chairman) told me I could no longer play for the first team,” Stech says. “I had a clause in my contract that if I played five games, then...