Player #961 for Aston Villa, Jake Walker played as a right back for the club in the 2020-21 season, making his sole appearance in that season’s FA Cup.

Jake was born on 3 November 2000 and signed professional forms with Villa in July 2018 aged 17.

Walker was promoted to the Villa Under 23 squad for the 2018-19 season under Mark Delaney and spent spells out on loan with Banbury in the 2019-20 season and local side Alvechurch in 2020-21 however he was recalled by Delaney who promoted Walker to the first team squad before giving him his first team debut in the 2020-21 season aged 20 in the 1-4 FA Cup defeat to Liverpool on Friday, 8 January 2021. That would prove to be Walker’s only first team appearance for the club.

That appearance came as part of the youngest ever team to ever take the field for Villa in a professional game - aged 18.8 years on average - after the first team squad was forced into isolation due to the COVID-19 pandemic which had seen a raft of players and staff testing positive for the virus in the week preceding the game.

Walker was one of 16 debutants in the game - the most in a single game in Villa’s history and was also part of the starting XI made up of 11 debutants, the first time this had happened since Villa’s first professional fixture - also in the FA Cup - on Saturday, 13 December 1879 against Stafford Road. Walker made his debut appearance under caretaker manager Mark Delaney after Villa boss Dean Smith was required to join the first team in isolation.

Walker, like first team regular Matty Cash, was a player described as a proper old-school full-back with a bright future ahead however it was announced in April 2021 that he would be released by the club at the end of the 2020-21 season. Walker’s release followed a ‘technical board meeting’ on March 16 2021 between Academy Manager Mark Harrison, Dean Smith, Mark Delaney, Chief Executive Christian Purslow and Sporting Director Johan Lange against a back drop of a significant scale-up in the club’s academy operations with a view to developing a continuing flow of first team talent over the coming decade. Walker proved a casualty of that drive but could look back on Friday, 8 January 2021 - a day that saw him become the 960th player to represent the Villa first team over 132 seasons.