{"id":28318,"date":"2026-09-05T03:24:39","date_gmt":"2026-09-05T02:24:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:8888\/three-academy-graduates-sign-first-professional-deals\/"},"modified":"2026-09-05T03:24:39","modified_gmt":"2026-09-05T02:24:39","slug":"three-academy-graduates-sign-first-professional-deals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/team\/three-academy-graduates-sign-first-professional-deals\/","title":{"rendered":"Three academy graduates sign first professional deals"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Tom Ellery, Jonah Reeve and Zeke Adeyemi have signed their first professional contracts, each running to the summer of 2028. All three joined the academy at under-9 level and have come through every age group at Fairlow.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Ellery, a left-sided forward, made his first-team debut in the League Cup win over Halbrook. Reeve and Adeyemi have both been in matchday squads this season without yet appearing. <strong>They take the number of Fairlow graduates in the first-team group to nine.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n<h3 id=\"who-they-are\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Who they are<\/h3>\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Tom Ellery, 18, forward \u2014 14 goals for the under-18s last season.<\/li><li>Jonah Reeve, 18, midfielder \u2014 captained the under-18s to the regional final.<\/li><li>Zeke Adeyemi, 17, midfielder \u2014 the youngest player to sign professionally at the club since 2004.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cNine of them in the group now. That is not luck; it is twenty years of the same people doing the same job well.\u201d<\/p><cite>Gareth Vane, head of academy<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n<h3 id=\"what-comes-next\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">What comes next<\/h3>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">All three will train with the first team on a permanent basis from Monday. Reeve and Adeyemi will continue to play for the under-21s on match weekends when not in the senior squad.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tom Ellery, Jonah Reeve and Zeke Adeyemi have signed two-year professional contracts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":28016,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_spx_person_id":0,"_spx_fixture_id":0,"_spx_pick_id":0,"_spx_eg_facts_label":"","_spx_eg_facts":"","_spx_figure_caption":"","_spx_news_feat":"","_spx_video_url":"","_spx_duration":"","_spx_views":"","_spx_presenter":"","_spx_media_state":"","_spx_start_at":"","_spx_media_status":"","_spx_episode":"","_spx_subject":"","_spx_subject_role":"","_spx_story_year":"","_spx_duration_seconds":0,"_spx_view_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[110],"spx_comp":[],"spx_fixture_ref":[],"spx_series":[],"spx_format":[],"spx_video_kind":[],"spx_show":[],"spx_sport":[],"spx_flag":[],"class_list":["post-28318","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academy","tag-academy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/team\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28318","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/team\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/team\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/team\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/team\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28318"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/team\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28318\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/team\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28016"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/team\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28318"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/team\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28318"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/team\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28318"},{"taxonomy":"spx_comp","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/team\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/spx_comp?post=28318"},{"taxonomy":"spx_fixture_ref","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/team\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/spx_fixture_ref?post=28318"},{"taxonomy":"spx_series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/team\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/spx_series?post=28318"},{"taxonomy":"spx_format","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/team\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/spx_format?post=28318"},{"taxonomy":"spx_video_kind","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/team\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/spx_video_kind?post=28318"},{"taxonomy":"spx_show","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/team\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/spx_show?post=28318"},{"taxonomy":"spx_sport","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/team\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/spx_sport?post=28318"},{"taxonomy":"spx_flag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/team\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/spx_flag?post=28318"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}