Doncaster Rovers are pleased to announce the signing of former Aston Villa and Brentford attacking midfielder Harry Forrester.
Forrester began his footballing education in the youth set up at Watford and immediately impressed attracting interest from top Premier League clubs.
In January 2008 Aston Villa paid a fee of around £250,000 for the then seventeen year old beating the likes of Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspurs to his signature.
Forrester made an instant impact, after joining Villa, helping the U18s side to FA Premier Academy League glory in his first season in the Midlands.
After seeing his contract out at Aston Villa, the impressive Forrester went on trial at Dutch giants Ajax. Scoring a hat-trick for the Ajax reserve side he received high praise from manager Frank de Boer and was subsequently offered a deal with the four-time European Cup winners.
He went on to become a regular starter in the Villa reserve team helping them to the Reserve League title in 2010.
A string of eye-catching performances during the 2012/13 season helped the Bees to a place in the League One play-off final at Wembley.
Forrester decided to turn the chance to play in the Netherlands down and opted to sign for League One club Brentford instead.
“As soon as I met Paul [Dickov] and John [Ryan] it became a no brainier for me; I spoke to my agent straight away and told him I thought Doncaster is the place for me. The deal was done a couple of days after that and now I’m just really happy to get things going.
Forrester spoke exclusively to Rovers Player upon joining the club and expressed his delight at having finalised the deal: “I’m very excited to be here, I’ve been here a while now and have got to know the lads and the manager and I’m really excited for the season ahead.
Forrester, 22, now joins Paul Dickov’s side on a three year contract.
“There’s a good core to the team here, we will have to add a couple of new faces which I’m sure the backroom staff are looking at now. The team and players that we have got here at the moment are good enough but with further additions we can give it a real go – it’s not going to be easy but we have got to enjoy it.”