Dale Eve, the Stoke City goalkeeper, has been rewarded for his impressive performances for the club’s under-21s with the offer of a new two-year contract.

The 19-year-old’s one-year contract was due to expire this summer, with the Barclays Premier League club moving swiftly to tie the 6ft 4in goalkeeper down to a longer deal.

“Opportunity to represent #scfc for another two years,” Eve said on Twitter yesterday. “Plenty room for improvement.”

The Bermuda player recently returned to the Britannia Stadium after a month’s loan spell at Fleetwood Town, in Sky Bet League Two, where he served as back-up to first-choice goalkeeper Scott Davies.

“Dale went to Fleetwood as a No 2 to sit on the bench because it was good for him to be working in a first-team environment,” David Wright, the Stoke City Academy director, said in a recent interview with the Stoke Sentinel.

Eve, who became one of Bermuda’s youngest players ever when, aged 16, he appeared as a substitute in a 2-1 win over Barbados in World Cup qualifier in 2011, was the only first-year Academy scholar to be handed professional terms last summer after his eye-catching displays for Stoke Under-18.

The former Dandy Town player was recruited by Stoke after impressing their scouts while playing for Derby County’s youth team. It is understood that Manchester City had also been interested in the former CedarBridge Academy pupil.

Town have forged a reputation for producing some of the Island’s best players, with Nahki Wells, Huddersfield Town’s record signing, Khano Smith, who appeared in Major League Soccer with New England Revolution and New York Red Bulls, and Reggie Lambe, who was released by Toronto FC this week, coming off their conveyor belt.