Introducing Lucas de Bolle

Like so many professional players from the region - including Alan Shearer, Peter Beardsley, Steve Bruce and Michael Carrick - the baby-faced ballplayer represented the famous Wallsend Boys Club and, having signed his first professional contract with the Magpies last summer, has trained increasingly regularly with Eddie Howe's first team squad in recent weeks.

In an interview with nufc.co.uk earlier this week, he explained: "Training with the first-team has been valuable experience, being around them in training sessions but also in the gym and seeing how they work. You also see how they talk and think in video meetings too and it's been great to learn from those experiences.

"I think I've put in good performances for the under-23s, playing every minute for the last nine games. I think I'm in good form and training with the first-team has been a reward because of that."

A creative midfielder, De Bolle attended Newcastle School for Boys and, having made his under-23s bow in December 2019 at the age of 17 in a Premier League 2 clash against Reading in the 2019/20 campaign, shone in last year's run to the quarter-finals of the FA Youth Cup, where the Magpies lost to eventual winners Aston Villa. 

He was also a member of Academy squads which won the Salt Mine Under-15 Cup in Wieliczka, Poland, in May 2018, and the Challenge Gerard Neuville in Montereau, Paris, in 2017.

And now the composed and intelligent teenager, who says his father, Jean, is his biggest career influence, will hope to become the latest Little Benton graduate to play in the Premier League, following in the footsteps of current team-mates Sean and Matty Longstaff, Paul Dummett and Elliot Anderson. He has been given the squad number 50. 

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