17 year old William Keane who left St Bede’s College last year to join Manchester United’s Football Academy has won this year’s ‘Jimmy Murphy Young Player of the Year for 2009/2010’ award at the club The special award is named in honour of Sir Matt Busby’s legendary assistant, Jimmy Murphy. William’s name will be engraved on the trophy alongside other United legends such as Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes andWes Brown.
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Director of Academy Football and former Reds striker, Brian McClair, presented the award and Will told the packed audience, “It’s a great achievement, I’m obviously honoured, I’ve supported United all my life so I’m really pleased”.
Director of Football at St Bede’s College, Steve Fallon, said, “Will has had a fantastic year at United and everyone at the College is delighted to see him making such excellent progress. I have been tracking his progress and I have seen him score some stunning goals. As a lifelong United fan I cannot wait to see him in the first team.”
Proud parent Aidan Keane said, “We are absolutely thrilled that Will won the award. He was nominated alongside two other second year Academy players, so to win the award at such a young age was a major achievement.”
The Academy striker has already scored 13 Academy goals for United and just before the award ceremony he scored the opening goal in a 2-0 victory over Everton which clinched the Academy League Group C title. He has also played a number of times for United’s reserve team and even played in the Reserve League Play Off Final which United won against Aston Villa. As well as playing for United the striker has already won eleven caps with the England U17 Squad scoring 6 goals for the national side, the most memorable being the winning goal against Germany. He is currently on tour with England in the UEFA championships.
Twin brother Michael, still at St Bede’s finishing Sixth Form, is also an accomplished member of the Academy.