Academy Youngsters Inducted

The Everton academy holds induction day for scholars of the system.

Everton welcomed the latest batch of full time academy players to the Club on Friday.

The boys who signed up have been registered as academy players since ages varying between nine and 16 but are now full-time Everton players.

One player who only joined up with the Everton youngsters today was Luke Garbutt. He was at Goodison Park having moved to the Toffees from Leeds United's academy setup.

With the scholars having still been at school until recently, they were only able to train outside of school time on weekday evenings or weekends.

It is now their full-time job to play for Everton, and despite going through the process for almost 20 years now, it is still academy manager Ray Hall's most exciting time of the year.

"It's one of the highlights of the season. Every year you see the hopes and aspirations of the young players and their families," Ray told evertonTV.

"This is about the new group and hopefully we've got one or two players that the followers of Everton can be proud of."

The likes of Wayne Rooney, Leon Osman, James Vaughan, Victor Anichebe and more recently Jack Rodwell have all been through the induction process at Everton and Ray has just as high hopes for the 2009/10 crop.

"Some of the players that have been through this process are now world stars and household names. I just hope that some of these boys take the opportunity that's available to them," he said.

The players who completed their induction for Everton were: Adam Cummins, Jake Bidwell, Connor Roberts, Luke Dobie, Tom Donegan, Zac Thompson, Ryan Watson, Luke Garbutt, Femi Orenugu and Daniel Murphy.

To see more on this, watch our special report on evertonTV now.