Cheltenham Town manager Mark Yates and Centre of Excellence manager Ken Oram today met with all of the club's second year Scholarship players.

Four of the eight second years have been informed that the club wishes to offer them professional contracts .The four are defender Kyle Haynes, midfielder or forward Theo Lewis, striker Jake Lee and midfielder Josh Emery.

Mark Yates commented: "It's always a very tough decision to make with regard to which of the Scholars to make offers to.

"The staff have given it a lot of thought and consideration and the four have all tasted first team involvement to some level over the past year. They are all players whom we believe will be ones for the future with us.

"On the back of that, of course there are four others whom we will not be making offers to and we sincerely hope that they prove us wrong. We have made the decisions early in order to give them as much time as possible to consider their futures and we will help them in any way we can."

Defenders Ryan Keen and Josh Quaynor, goalkeeper Joe Perry and midfielder Cathal Tosh will therefore continue the education part of their Scholarship term for the remainder of the season before departing in the summer.

Of the four who will be offered contracts, Haynes and Lewis have both been regular members of the first team squad this season. Birmingham-born Haynes, who joined the Robins from Birmingham City aged 16, became the youngest player to represent Cheltenham Town in the Football League when he made his first team debut against Oldham Athletic last March and has so far made eight starting and 11 substitute appearances. Oxford-born Lewis, who has been with the club from age 15 and who top scored for the youth team in season 2007-08, made his debut towards the end of last season and has to date started 10 games with a further eight substitute appearances and one goal, against Torquay United in the FA Cup.

Striker Jake Lee from Cirencester joined the Robins from Beeches FC as a 16-year old and also made his first team debut late last season, while Ledbury-based midfielder Josh Emery has the longest association with the club. He joined the Centre of Excellence as a 13-year old and made one appearance as a substitute for the first team last season. During the current campaign he has been playing in the Blue Square South with Worcester City to gain first team experience.