Lucas Akins

Lucas-Jordan Jeremiah "LJ" Akins (born 25 February 1989 in Huddersfield) is a professional footballer currently playing for Scottish Premier League side Hamilton Academical. He attended St. Patricks Junior and Infants School where he was very talented in many sports which, included athletics, rugby and basketball but was a prolific striker scoring many goals for the school. He also attended Newsome High School and Sports College where he also excelled in many sports.

Akins is quite a versatile character. He also was a talented dancer, and won many awards in Ballet, Tap, Modern and Jazz dancing. His 12 year dancing career came to an end when he had the difficult decision to make between football and dancing, he chose football.

Akins started his career with Huddersfield Town, and on 20 April 2007, then manager Andy Ritchie promoted him and 3 other members of Huddersfield's academy to the first team squad, following excellent performances for the academy and reserve teams.

Akins made his Huddersfield debut on 27 April 2007, when he replaced Luke Beckett in Huddersfield's match against Northampton Town at the Sixfields Stadium, where ironically he had scored a hat-trick for Huddersfield's youth team against Northampton in the FA Youth Cup in November 2006.

Akins scored his first goal for the club in the last friendly before the 2007-08 season started against Mansfield Town and also hit the post in the same game. He was a regular in the squad at the beginning of the 2007-08 season, mainly featuring from the bench.

On 22 November, the then manager Andy Ritchie sent Akins on loan to Conference National side Northwich Victoria for match practice. He helped his new club to a first victory of the season in his first game, ending a 19 game streak for Northwich without a win. He scored his first goal for his new club in their 2-1 win over Altrincham on 26 December 2007. He returned to Huddersfield on 15 February 2008.

It was said that Andy Ritchie had offered Akins a new deal but when he left the club by mutual consent on 1 April 2008 things changed. Stan Ternent was later appointed and told Akins he would now not be offered a new deal as he wanted to bring in more experience. He was therefore released at the end of the season.

On 22 July 2008, he was signed on a two-year contract, by the newly-promoted Scottish Premier League side Hamilton Academical.

He scored his first goal for the Scottish side in a friendly against Dumbarton and has scored a further 3 goals in 3 pre-season friendlies for his new side taking his tally to 4 before the start of the new SPL season.

He made his competitive debut in first game of the new SPL season on 11 August 2008 in the 3-1 win over Dundee United at New Douglas Park.

Later in the season, he joined Scottish First Division side Partick Thistle on loan, scoring his first goal against Greenock Morton in a 1-0 win.

References

Lucas Akins career stats at Soccerbase

1. "Akins Aims To Shine At Accies" The Hamilton Advertiser, 24 July 2008

2. "Akins Accies Debut Gets Off To Scoring Start" The Evening Times, 24 July 2008

3. "I'll Dance My Way Past SPL Defenders" The Scottish Sun, 8 August 2008

4. "Life At The Top Suits Both Lucas and Accies" The Huddersfield Examiner, 20 August 2008

External links

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