http://www.just-football.com/2010/12/sp ... h-academy/
Special Report: Behind the scenes at Manchester City’s Youth Academy
Peter Lowe thumbs through a wad of documents, places them neatly back on his desk and gazes out of the sizeable window in his office into the clear Manchester sky. Were it not blocked by scaffolding and builders shuffling around in blue hard hats the view would be wonderful – a crisp, cool sky pierced by rays of sunlight and the odd cloud.
“I mean, these are serious businessmen,” he says as he turns back round. “In the last two years expectation levels have gone…” his voice trails off and he looks up to the ceiling, pointing both fingers upwards to accentuate his point.
Lowe is the head of education and coaching at Manchester City, a club undergoing a complete realignment in terms of it’s position in the world of football. But despite the eye-watering amounts of money the club has spent since Sheikh Mansour’s Abu Dhabi United Group took over in 2008, the signs are that City still have a very keen eye on the future, and developing a youth setup that will continue to see young players come through at Eastlands.
Now, everyone knows about the petrodollar-fuelled revolution at City. The newfound wealth, the star signings, the astronomical wages, the elevated expectations, the feuds and the fallouts. These days, as in the 1960s and 70s during the reign of Joe Mercer and maverick Malcolm Allison, City make big headlines.
What has not been talked about quite so much however is the investment in infrastructure and the solid foundations being laid by ADUG and Sheikh Mansour as they set about their blueprint of making Manchester City “the biggest club in the world” as their owners put it.
Investment and development in City’s youth academy is just part of the masterplan. Earlier this year City announced multi-million pound plans to expand their youth training complex at Platt Lane in Fallowfield – home to the Youth Academy.
New leisure facilities, including a gym and changing rooms for the young players, more space for youth team training sessions and new office and seminar space are all part of the expansion to Platt Lane. Planning permission has already been granted by Manchester council chiefs.
In a spirit of innovation that would have made Allison proud, the club also recently launched it’s ‘Cityecademy’ – an online coaching resource aimed at teaching kids anywhere in the world basic football skills. “It’s a way for people to literally plug into, as an online service via their Iphone or whatever, a coaching manual,” says Lowe.
“Coaches, players, spectators, potential spectators, lovers of the game can look at things that are on there. For example, turning drills, passing practices, goalkeeping drills, warmup drills, conditioning drills – it’s just a whole conglomeration of ideas.”
The aim, apparently, is to expand the reach of City as a club. “To take the football club away from the football club to potential players all over the world, coaches who coach, people that want to coach, people that have got an interest in the game.”
This focus on youth is admirable. In truth, City have always taken pride in their Academy. Just Football was recently given exclusive behind the scenes access to the Academy, and a tour around the training complex at Platt Lane accurately reflects that pride. In the canteen, a board mounted on the wall lists the names of every Academy graduate to play for the first team. Adjacent to it, a separate board for the 10 Academy graduates turned internationals.
“This club has produced 34 players who have made the first team in the 12 years since the inception of our academy, 10 internationals and over 60 who are now playing in other forms of professional football,” Lowe asserts. “That is a pretty impressive record in anybody’s books and we will continue to produce players here because that is the expectancy of the owners.”
We start in Lowe’s office, a bright, spacious room looking out over the training pitches. Important documents lie in neat piles on the desk. Pinned to the wall is a list of all schools in the local area, alongside names and numbers of the respective teachers. Next to it, a map of Manchester and it’s surrounding 50 mile radius. Coloured pins identify the various schools.
To walk around the complex is to be impressed. In Chris Green’s book Every Boy’s Dream Premier League general secretary Mike Foster expresses pride at “the way clubs have invested in their academies. The facilities at our major clubs are world class,” says Foster. Touring Platt Lane it is difficult to disagree.
The facilities are magnificent. The indoor training centre, nicely manicured pitches, luxurious changing rooms and spacious canteen are all of remarkable standard. Pictures of Academy graduates, including the FA Youth Cup winning team of 2008, and current first team players are everywhere alongside slogans like ‘Who’s next?’, ‘Activate your mind’, ‘Knowledge is Power’ and ‘Fulfilling potential. Achieving greatness.’ Plasma screen TVs with match statistics from previous Academy games are stationed in virtually every room.
“At this football club we coach players to understand the game and to win the game,” says Lowe, “so that what we end up with are technically competent players who are competitive, but also decision-making winners. That’s what we’re after.”
What really fascinates though is the nerve centre of it all; the cluster of offices in which high-tech performance analysis takes place. The central hub of the whole impressive operation. Here, like mad scientists in white coats in an underground lair of a Bond movie, teams of employees with laptops and high-spec analytical tools pore through mountains of video clips and match statistics. Two data analysts per game collate live statistics for players all the way down to junior academy level (7-8 years of age). The players then take this detailed information and sit down with their coaches to assess and improve their game.
“Performance analysis I think is one of the great developments of the modern game,” Lowe enthuses. “You know, a player is able to play now and on the Monday morning he comes in he can have all his stats – his passing stats, his heading stats. We can produce details on possession rates in the game, number of entries into the final third, shots at goal, successful, unsuccessful, whatever. We can play back clips of bits that players take part in in games and they can learn from that.”
“I’ll go in after a game and watch the clips,” says 18-year-old striker Harry Bunn, a promising youngster that has been at the academy for nine years. “And then in the next game if I’m in that situation again then I know what to do.”
The professionalism and dedication of the staff is another element of City’s academy that augurs well. Whether forewarned there would be nosy press types walking around asking questions or not, the sheer passion for the job shines through in abundance.
Al Stewart, head of conditioning, describes in deep detail the sports science work that goes on – like how biometrics and lifting variations are used to improve players’ ecentric strength or how volume and intensity of training is measured to optimise matchday performance. Meanwhile the data analysts enthuse about the state-of-the-art high-tech software at their disposal, the expense of which they say would potentially be a strain but for the limitless resources of the owners.
While developing youngsters into first team professional players is obviously the ultimate goal, City are also careful to focus on the educational element too. Players must involve themselves with City’s community work, helping coach kids from the club’s junior academy as well as underprivileged and disabled youngsters. Academic progress is also encouraged.
“When players sign scholarship contracts they have two parts to the contract. There’s the technical development and games programme and there is the continuance for educational development. Here we run two parts to an education programme. We have boys that want to continue a formal education, in other words they may wish to do their A-Levels.”
“And then there are boys that choose to take an education via a new programme, our multi-skills lifestyle programme. That’s everything to do with their development as a player within the modern game but also as a person who is part of society.”
Lowe is keen to stress the importance of the educational side of youth development at academy level. “This whole environment is about learning. Coaches know that, the support staff know that, I know that and I have to say I really think that’s one of the very, very positive things about this academy.”
Cityecademy is the first of its kind, designed to be an online partner of Manchester City’s youth Academy and an entry level resource for young motivated amateur footballers around the world. For more information head to http://www.cityecademy.com
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