Midfielder Voted Your Reading FC Rookie Of The Year

Congratulations to midfielder Liam Kelly, who follows Jake Cooper and Aaron Tshibola in being voted your Reading FC Rookie of the Year. Kelly took more than 80% of the first place ballots, to beat John Swift into second and Tyler Blackett into third. Callum Harriott, Yakou Meite and Dominic Samuel rounded off the ballot this season.

Here are the results in full. A first place vote earned five points, three points were on offer for a second place vote and just the one point went to a third place vote.

Few could argue against Kelly picking up the award, especially considering he came into the season with next to zero expectation and minimal hype. Swift arguably produced more in terms of goal involvement but also had far more experience and pedigree after arriving from Chelsea via a year in the Championship with Brentford.

As mentioned in the voting article itself, what's most pleasing is that there were six candidates to choose from and all of them received votes. When you also factor in that players including George Evans, Jordan Obita and Liam Moore were ineligible due to the voting criteria, it shows what a strong, promising group of young players Jaap Stam has to build around. When you also add returning loanees including Jack Stacey, Tariq Fosu and perhaps Jake Cooper into the mix as well, the future certainly seems bright for Reading.

So congratulations to Liam! Now if you can just hang around a tad longer than the last man to win this award...