Arthur James Read (born 3 November 1999) is an English professional

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby lea ...

who plays as a

midfielder In the sport of association football, a midfielder takes an Glossary of association football terms#O, outfield position primarily in the middle of the pitch. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in t ...

for club

Colchester United Colchester United Football Club is a professional association football club based in the city of Colchester, Essex, England. The team competes in , the fourth level of the English football league system. Founded in 1937, the club spent its ea ...

. He is a product of the

Luton Town Luton Town Football Club is a professional association football, football club from Luton, Bedfordshire, England. The club currently competes in EFL League One, the third level of the English football league system. Nicknamed "The Hatters", L ...

academy An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of tertiary education. The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, founded approximately 386 BC at Akademia, a sanctuary of Athena, the go ...

Career

Luton Town

, Read began his career with

at under-9 level. He progressed through the club's

to the under-18 team and was awarded a scholarship in February 2016. He made his first-team debut as a 90th-minute substitute for Jake Gray in a 3–1 home defeat to

Millwall Millwall is a district on the western and southern side of the Isle of Dogs, in east London, England, in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It lies to the immediate south of Canary Wharf and Poplar, north of Greenwich and Deptford, east of ...

in an

EFL Trophy The English Football League Trophy, officially known as the Vertu Motors, Vertu Trophy for sponsorship reasons, is an annual English association football, football knockout competition open to all clubs in EFL League One and EFL League Two and ...

group stage match on 8 November 2016, and signed a three-year professional contract with the club two weeks later. Read continued to play predominantly for the club's development and under-18 teams, with whom he won the Bedfordshire Premier Cup in 2016 and the Youth Alliance Cup in 2018. During the next two seasons, he made six further EFL Trophy appearances, and was loaned out to

National League South The National League South, officially Vanarama National League South, is a professional Association football league in England. National League South is the second division of the National League (English football), National Leagues and step ...

club Hemel Hempstead Town for one month, where he made five appearances. Read rejected the offer of a new development contract in the summer of 2019 and departed

Kenilworth Road Kenilworth Road, known affectionately as The Kenny, is a association football, football stadium in the area of Bury Park, Luton, Bedfordshire, England. It has been the home ground of Luton Town F.C., Luton Town Football Club since 1905. The sta ...

having made seven appearances and scored one goal.

Brentford

Read joined

Championship In sport, a championship is a competition in which the aim is to decide which individual or team is the champion. Championship systems Various forms of competition can be referred to by the term championship. Title match system In this sys ...

club

Brentford Brentford is a suburban town in West (London sub region), West London, England and part of the London Borough of Hounslow. It lies at the confluence of the River Brent and the River Thames, Thames, west of Charing Cross. Its economy has dive ...

on 12 July 2019 to play in their B team, signing a one-year contract with the option of a further year, for a compensation fee. Having made 30 appearances and scored five goals in his first season with the B team, Brentford exercised the option to extend Read's contract in July 2020. He spent the entire

2020–21 The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen ...

season away on loan and departed when his contract expired.

Stevenage

On 10 September 2020, Read joined League Two club

Stevenage Stevenage ( ) is a town and borough in Hertfordshire, England, about north of London. Stevenage is east of junctions 7 and 8 of the A1(M), between Letchworth Garden City to the north and Welwyn Garden City to the south. In 1946, Stevenage w ...

on loan until the end of the

season. He made 38 appearances, scored two goals and joined the club on a permanent contract at the end of the season.

Colchester United

On 3 January 2023, Read signed a two-and-a-half-year contract with League Two side

Career statistics

Honours

Individual *

Player of the Month: October 2020, December 2020 *

Player of the Year: 2023–24 *Colchester United Players' Player of the Year: 2023–24

References

External links

*
Profile
at the Stevenage F.C. website {{DEFAULTSORT:Read, Arthur 1999 births Living people Footballers from the London Borough of Camden English men's footballers Men's association football midfielders Luton Town F.C. players Hemel Hempstead Town F.C. players Brentford F.C. players Stevenage F.C. players Colchester United F.C. players National League (English football) players English Football League players 21st-century English sportsmen