West Ham have handed teenage winger Daniel Kearns a one-year contract.
Belfast-born Kearns signed his new deal at the weekend, and will battle for a place in Alex Dyer's reserve side next season along with the latest batchof graduate graduates.
The 17-year-old, who is entering his third year with the club having initially joined as a 15-year-old told whufc.com:
"I'm absolutely delighted. I actually found out just before the end of last season. I had a meeting with Tony Carr and he was saying that he was going
to offer me a professional contact. Now I've got it done I'm happy it's out of the way and I want to get cracking on with the season.
"The main aim for this season is to get another contract at the end of it. I'm hoping to get a regular spot in the reserves and maybe try to go out on
loan during the season and from there, I hope to push on and get into the first team. You never know what's going to happen.
"Hopefully I'll be involved in the [Irish] Under-19s this year and maybe I could push on into the Under-21 squad as well. We'll see what happens."
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