SIX Morton Under-17s have been offered two-year, full-time professional contracts and will become members of Andy Millen’s development squad next season, the Tele can reveal. 

Mitchell Duffy, David Anderson, Darren Hynes, all 17, and 16-year-olds Jack Purdue, Scott Miller and Ben Eardley have agreed terms and are expected to put pen to paper in the coming weeks.

In addition, Blair Docherty and Greig Connor, a goalkeeper named on the first-team bench at Alloa in February, will both continue to attend school whilst making as many training sessions as possible.

Morton director, and youth academy architect, Warren Hawke says the performances of the group prompted a higher than normal intake this year.

He told the Tele: “From the club’s perspective, this is a strong age group that we felt had a larger than normal crop of players that we needed to give a chance to.

“We always budget for about five players per season coming through, but simply because of the success of the academy and the efforts of each of these players we couldn’t draw the line at five.

“We felt it was right to take the six boys on full-time and also ensure that the other two boys could get in as much possible. It’s a strong batch of boys to add even more quality to the current development squad group that won their league this season.”