20-year-old stopper agrees terms on a new deal with Reading
We are delighted to announce that 20-year-old goalkeeper Coniah Boyce-Clarke has penned a new two-year contract with Reading Football Club.
The youngster’s last permanent deal expired in the summer, but he returned to Bearwood for pre-season training and was on a rolling week-to-week deal with Reading, making him eligible to play first-team football for the Royals while the terms of his permanent contract were finalised.
And today he has signed on the dotted line for a new deal which keeps him at Reading until the summer of 2025.
A local lad, he has been on the Royals books since the age of eight. He rose through the ranks at youth-team level, often playing several years higher than his own age-group, and debuted for our Under-23 squad in December 2018 at the age of just 15.
Boyce-Clarke would go on to experience senior football in the National League South during loan spells with both St Albans City and Welling United in the 2021-22 season. And that summer, despite previously having represented England up to Under-17 level, he switched his allegiance to Jamaica… debuting in a 1-1 draw for the Reggae Boyz Under-20s in a game against Costa Rica, as Reading teammate Jahmari Clarke scored a stoppage time penalty.
Returning to Reading and earning more regular football in the U21 Professional Development League, he would make his professional debut on the final day of the 2022-23 season as we visited Huddersfield Town, becoming the 76th Academy graduate to get minutes for our first team.
And after receiving a maiden call-up for Jamaica’s senior side last March, he went on to earn his first cap by coming on as a sub against St Kitt’s and Nevis in the CONCACAF Gold Cup this summer, eventually helping his nation to a semi-final place.
Coniah linked up with the squad upon their return from a pre-season camp in Spain, and kept a clean-sheet in his first senior appearance of 2023-24 in midweek at Millwall. Now he starts the next chapter of his Reading career.
Mark Bowen, Head of Football Operations, said: “Understandably there was a lot of interest circulating around Coniah over the course of the summer while he was out of contract, but it is a testament to this football club that he turned down other options and felt that this was the right place to keep developing and progressing his career.
“He has bags of natural talent, a desire to keep learning, and ambitions of pushing for the number 1 shirt. He’s also ‘one of our own’ and understands what it means to represent Reading, and we’re looking forward to what’s to come over the next two seasons.”
