Conor Grant

Conor Grant was a product of the Everton Academy, having been with the club since age 13, following in the footsteps of his uncle, Tony Grant. In July 2013, he signed his first professional contract at with the club.

A talented, left-footed player with an eye for goal, he featured in several of the senior side's pre-season games ahead of the 2013-14 campaign. He remained part of the Under-21 side in 2013-14 but missed a significant chunk of the season after he sustained an injury to his back in November that sidelined him for four months..

Grant returned to action in April 2014 for the Under-21s' final six games of the campaign as he regained full fitness following a frustrating period on the sidelines.

His first involvement with the first team in a competitive fixture came on 11 December 2014, when he was named as an unused substitute against FC Krasnodar in the Europa League but that was as close as he would come to making his senior bow.

He spent six months on loan at Motherwell in 2015, scoring on his debut against Ross County, before joining Doncaster Rovers on loan where he again scored a screamer on his first appearance, this time against Colchester United. 

He impressed on loan at Doncaster and made 22 appearances before injury forced his early return to Goodison Park in March 2016. The Yorkshire club made overtures to try and sign him permanently but in July 2016, he signed a new two-year deal at Everton.

He joined Ipswich Town on a season-long loan that summer in an attempt to ramp up his development at Championship level but he returned to Finch Farm early before re-joining . Doncaster Rovers in the January 2017 transfer window.

That didn't turn out all that well either, with manager Darren Ferguson saying that Conor Grant was ‘disappointing’ during his second loan spell, despite playing almost every game as he helped them win promotion back into League One.

The 2017-18 season saw him offered another one-year contract extension and a new loan opportunity, this time with Crewe Alexander; he played in 17 league games before returning to Everton where he would rejoin the Under-23s.

But in that timeframe Grant saw a proposed loan move to Plymouth Argyle fall through due to a small  oversight by Everton.

Grant was due to make the temporary switch to the south west in January 2018 with Argyle manager Derek Adams expecting him to be available for their match against Oldham.

It was discovered, however, that Grant was ineligible to play for Plymouth, having already turned out of Crewe Alexandra, where he was on loan earlier this season, as well as Everton's U23s side.

Fifa rules prohibit players from representing more than two clubs per season and, after making 18 appearances for Crewe and playing a solitary game for the Blues in the Checkatrade Trophy in August against Notts County (despite being an U23s fixture, it counted under FIFA rules as a first-team match because of the Football League opposition), Grant could not join a third team.

Adams admitted Plymouth's role in the mix-up but was critical of Everton's mistake which deprived him of a player he was hoping to sign.

“It was an oversight and the football management team have got to take full responsibility," Adams said. “Ourselves and Everton. They obviously knew he had played in the Checkatrade Trophy and had been out on loan.

“We knew the rules, but we didn't know he had played that one game in the Checkatrade Trophy.”

Grant would play out the season with Everton's U-23s and bring to an end his 10-year association with the club: he was not offered a new deal by the club at the end of the campaign and was released in June 2018 to join Plymouth Argyle in League One.