A JERSEY teenager has capped a season to remember by signing a professional contract with Championship side Birmingham City.
Laiith Fairnie (18) has been based at Hartpury, a sixth-form college in Gloucestershire, for two years, while playing for Hartpury University’s football team in Division One of the Hellenic League – step six of English football.
However, it is his performances as captain for England Schoolboys’ and the England Colleges FA, both of which he was selected for this year, that attracted the attention of scouts from a number of professional clubs in England, with Birmingham winning the race for his signature on a two-year deal.
‘It’s so exciting,’ said Fairnie. ‘I was thinking: “Are you sure you want my signature?’’’
‘It’s just strange because you’ve gone from being in class two or three days ago to this.’
The former Jersey Wanderers junior had been on trial with Birmingham after scouts from the club watched him play for Hartpury in their fourth-round FA Vase tie at Atherstone Town, having already been alerted to the centre-back’s talents.
‘They had heard of me through the England Colleges team and they came down to watch because it was quite near their training grounds,’ added Fairnie.
‘And at the end of the game, the scout approached one of my coaches and said they wanted me to come for trial.
‘I trained for a week and it went really well. I trained with the under-18s and the U21s and played a couple of games against Crewe and against Wigan. In the end I played four games in trials over four separate weeks, the other two were against Sheffield Wednesday U21s and QPR U21s and I gave a really good account for myself.’
Fairnie, who captained England Schoolboys’ in the prestigious Centenary Shield, has a keen eye for goal despite being a defender and has become something of a dead ball specialist. In a match for England Colleges he scored a hat-trick, including a free-kick, in a 5-0 win against Greece.
On the back of these performances, he said he had been approached by 15 professional clubs in total to try out during the pre-season, including Tottenham Hotspur and Aston Villa.
‘It was quite shocking,’ Fairnie admitted. ‘But after a couple of weeks Birmingham said they were going to offer a professional contract and when it arrived we read through the terms and we thought “right, now this is the only one on the table” and they’ve got a great track record of developing young talent so it felt right to sign for them.’
Fairnie is keen to keep the momentum in his fast development going and is already eyeing potential first-team appearances next season through the Carabao Cup, just as Luke Harris, only a month older than Fairnie, did last season with Fulham.
