Leon Maloney

Exciting attacking talent, who came through the youth ranks at Portsmouth before plying his trade in the Netherlands.

Born on the Isle of Wight in 2001, Leon Maloney took part in the Pompey in the Community training sessions on the island from the age of eight, and joined the Fratton Park club’s youth ranks when he was 10 years-old.

His Portsmouth debut came as a 54th-minute substitute in a 2-0 Checkatrade Trophy win over Southend United in January 2019 (prior to Pompey going on to lift the trophy with a penalty shoot-out victory over Sunderland at Wembley Stadium). Leon scored his first goal for the club in a 2-1 win against Northampton Town in the same competition the following season.

In-between those Portsmouth first team appearances, the winger – who can also play as an attacking midfielder in the No.10 role – had two loan spells with Bognor Regis Town, either side of the 2019 summer break.

Reports on one football-themed website linked Leon with potential moves to Chelsea and West Ham United in July 2019 but it was the interest of FC Volendam in the Netherlands that piqued his curiosity, and after speaking to their manager at the time, the former Dutch international and Internazionale midfielder Wim Jonk, Leon joined Het Andere Oranje (The Other Orange) for an undisclosed fee in January 2020, when he was still only 19 years-old.

As reported by the Portsmouth News at the time, Leon’s departure did not go down well among some of the Fratton Park faithful, who had hoped to see him rise through the Portsmouth ranks to the eventual benefit of the first team.

Life at FC Volendam, in a fishing town just north of Amsterdam where the football club was organised on the same basis as the famous Ajax youth academy by several of its former employees, began encouragingly for the Islander. He racked up seven first team appearances in the 2020/21 Eerste Divisie, helping them to a sixth-place finish that qualified them for the Promotion Play-Offs, although they subsequently lost 1-4 to NAC Breda with Leon being left out of the squad.

By the beginning of the 2021/22 season, he had been moved into the Jong FC Volendam team who compete in the Tweede Divisie at the third tier of Dutch football. His hopes of winning his place back in the first team were dealt a massive blow when he suffered stress fractures to both of his ankles, forcing him out of the game for a year. When he’d recovered, he trained with the first team squad but only got to play more games for the Reserves, until his contract expired at the end of 2022/23.

Leon was unable to join the Isle of Wight squad that won Bronze in the Island Games football tournament over the summer, while he was looking for a new club. He played in the pre-season game at home to Hamworthy United on 29 July and he was an unused substitute in the dramatic late opening day victory at Harrow Borough.

A consistent, hard-working performer, Leon has the ability to pick a killer pass in the final third, while also posing a direct threat to goal from outside the box and when using his considerable pace to power into the channels to strike from closer to goal.

Leon Maloney is sponsored by Julie Coward & Keith Quaintance