Tomkins signs new contract

West Ham United are delighted to announce that James Tomkins has signed a new contract with the Club until summer 2020.

The new deal will take the Academy of Football graduate past 20 years of service to the Hammers, who he joined as a seven-year-old schoolboy in 1996.

The Basildon-born centre-back has been in outstanding form this season, helping the Hammers to a record-breaking Barclays Premier League start and the FA Cup fifth round.

"I think it's brilliant that the Club has shown faith in me and offered me this deal and I'm delighted to sign it," said the 25-year-old, who made his first-team debut at 18 in March 2008. "I've been here since I was seven and this is a long-term deal which is going to take me up until I'm in my thirties, so it's nice to commit my future here.

"It's been a good season, but it's still got a little way to go yet and the job is not done. We've had a good year so far and we want to continue it. I feel like my performances have come along a lot this year and I am just enjoying playing really."

While in previous decades West Ham might have allowed a home-grown hero like Tomkins to leave the Club, the Hammers are now committed to keeping their best players for the future. With excitement growing around the move to the Club's 54,000-capacity new home in 2016, the defender says it is a great time to be part of West Ham United.

"Being a West Ham fan, I want to spend my future here as it is exciting times with the Olympic Stadium move coming up in 2016," continued Tomkins, who has played 205 times in Claret and Blue.

"The Club is going in the direction I wanted it to go and I want to be involved in. It's exciting all-round, for the Club and for me.

"It's a good time and this year has been a great step forward. Now we just need to see it out. I look back at all the times I've been in the team, from when I made my debut at 18-years-old, and this is as well as we've done. Now we need to keep it going until the end of the season, because we have a lot of hard games coming up.

"What the Board and everyone at the Club has done to get the new Stadium shows the direction we want to be taking - we want to be going forwards and not backwards and that's certainly where we're heading. It's a great time for us. We want to leave Upton Park on a high, so it's important we do the very best we can over the next 18 months leading up to the move."