Academy of football. Where are they now? Author: ExWHUEmployee . Published: 13 August 2018 at 6:09pm

Hearing the discussion on the West Ham way radio show about academy players and what they are doing now inspired me to look more in-depth at this subject so here is just a few I’ve picked out. If you have any requests for more contact me on Twitter @__BenHughes

Blair Turgott

Turgott joined the Academy of football at the age of 8 and stayed in the academy set up in till 2012 when he signed his first professional contract with the club. He made is debut and only appearance for West Ham in the FA cup against Nottingham Forrest under the management of Sam Allardyce which ended up being a 5-0 defeat in a bad day for the club and all the youngsters involved. The Winger is now currently playing for Maidstone in the national league where he has scored 3 goals in 3 games.

Dan Potts

Son of Steve Potts. Dan was in the academy at West Ham 2003-2011 in which year he signed his first profession contract with the hammers. In 2012 when West Ham got promoted to Championship he made 4 appearances for us and was rewarded with the prestigious Young Hammer Of Year award. He went on to make a handful of cup and premier league sub appearances. He has been sent out on a couple of loans spells before moving to Luton where he has been a key player for them making over 80 league appearances.

Elliot Lee

Another son of a former Hammer Rob Lee. Elliot was seen as a huge prospect at West Ham he signed his professional contract in 2012. I didn’t go on to make many appearances for the club but one of his most memorable moments would be scoring in the Europa league away against F.C. Lusitanos. Lee went out on a number of loans like most West Ham youngsters, He had little success on these spell and in 2016 was aloud to leave permanently whom a year later let him go. He has now linked up with team mate Dan Potts and he’s settled well at Luton scoring 10 in 34 games.

Freddie Sears

Probably out of this list he was the one I thought was going to make it the most. Freddie was unreal form for the West Ham youth teams regularly scoring more goals than games played throughout the season. At the age of 18 he was handed his Premier League debut, and what a debut it was. He came on in the 75th minute with the score being 1-1 vs Blackburn rovers it took him 5 minutes to score to win the game for the Hammers. All in all Freddy Sears went on to make 46 league appearances in Claret and Blue but the goals dried up and he’s was sent out on loans which didn’t work out and eventually was let go by West Ham. Freddie’s next challenge was Colchester where he became a fan favourite for his determination in every game. He scored 28 in 91 appearances before Ipswich signed him in the championship for 100k he’s still currently at Ipswich making is 100th appearance for them last season. His league goal record for them is 22 in 115 games

George Moncur

Who started as a school boy at Tottenham but then finally saw sense and joined the West Ham Academy. He’s also the son of Ex West Ham midfielder John Moncur. He struggled to get into the first team at any level as we had strong competition in central midfield he managed to make a few appearances in cup games such as the 5-0 loss to Nottingham Forest in the FA Cup. Again he was sent out on a number of loans which didn’t go to plan for one reason or another. Eventually he went on loan to Colchester where the move was made permanent. After some impressive performances for Colchester, Barnsley paid 500k for midfielder but didn’t get as much game time as expected.

Junior Stanislas

From this list Stanislas has done by far the better out of all these ex West Han academy players. Joining the Academy in the summer of the 2000’s. He was really impressing the youth coaches and regularly was training with the first team from the age of 16. He went on to make 42 league appearances for West Ham scoring 5 goals in the process eventually he fell out of favour and was sold to Burnley in the championship for an undisclosed fee. He struggled to find the net at all in this first season at Burnley and managed to find the net 7 times in his second season playing all but 11 games for them. Next for him was a move to Bournemouth reuniting with His old Burnley manager Eddie Howe. Which that season they earned promotion to the Premier League and still gets regular game time for Bournemouth in the Top flight.