It has been another exciting year in the academy and an incredible time to be part of our football club.
Our thanks to Mr Bloom, the board and the senior staff around the club who give us unwavering support. My thanks particularly to Paul Barber, Paul Mullen, David Weir, Mike Cave and Rose Read who work so closely with us. We are so fortunate to have leadership with such a genuine passion for young people and youth development. Our pathway is testament to this vision.
We are fortunate to have all our technical teams from the Men’s, Women’s, Boys’, and Girls’ pathways on site at Lancing. We enjoy the support of staff across the club and Albion in the Community, and thank you to everyone that has helped collaborate with us and contributed to the academy programme. We are truly one club and move forward together.
We have enjoyed a positive and progressive year. Congratulations to Evan Ferguson for his performances this season and to Andy Moran, Odel Offiah and Cameron Peupion for their Premier League debuts. We have also enjoyed first-team debuts for Jack Hinchy and James Furlong.
Everyone in the academy was also extremely proud to see Rob Sanchez and Jeremy Sarmiento attend the World Cup in Qatar. We also continue to have many of our players represent their countries or receive call-ups at various ages: Evan Ferguson, Thomas McGill, Steven Alzate, Aaron Connolly, Andy Moran, Cameron Peupion, Carl Rushworth, Casey Shann, Casper Nilsson, Ed Turns, Jack Hinshelwood, James Beadle, Mark O’Mahony, Samy Chouchane, Imari Samuels, James Furlong, Joshua Duffus, Ruairi McConville, Tommy Reid, Luca Barrington, Freddie Simmonds, Harry Howell, Sebastian Ademola, Ronnie Gorman, Adam Brett and Tyler Silsby.
Our Men’s U21 and Men’s U18 squads both achieved top-six finishes in their respective leagues with far younger groups than in previous years – six scholars featuring in our U21 4-1 away victory against Chelsea recently. We also progressed to the knockout stages of the Premier League International Cup out of a group containing Feyenoord, Monaco, PSV Eindhoven and Sparta Prague, ultimately losing 3-2 to Valencia in another entertaining game at the training ground.
A big thank you to Shannon Ruth, Arthur Brammer and the multidisciplinary teams that work across the professional development phase.
Our loan pathway continues to go from strength to strength under the guidance of Gordon Greer, with players across numerous leagues gaining valuable experience.
At U16 level, we reached the final four of the Premier League National event and we are delighted that Alfie Mansell, Matthew Hayden, Josh Lewis, Corbin Mthunzi, Callum Mackley, Layth Gulzar, Shane Nti, Ronnie Gorman and Aidan West have earnt scholarships with the club. We wish them well when they return to the training ground full-time in June.
We continue to provide a host of football experiences for our foundation and youth development groups. We aim to provide an elite football programme with a competitive games programme, numerous tournaments, and events. This season we have attended a host of Premier League events, such as the National Qualifiers, Albert Phelan Cup and the Futsal and Powerplay events.
Across all our squads this season, we have sent groups to play Monaco, PSG and Bayern Munich, and participated in trips and tournaments in Glasgow, Bierbeek, Ypres, Marseille, Reykjavik, Marbella, Porto and Hong Kong.
We have also enjoyed outstanding educational success, with excellent results across our A Level, GCSE and BTEC programmes and in the Premier League Truce Project and Young Writers’ Award.
We have an unparalleled education department and, in terms of holistic support, more outstanding staff across our performance and wellbeing department, inclusive of safeguarding, wellbeing, psychology and player care. Our operations and administrative teams also do incredible work in facilitating an ever-growing provision at home and abroad.
We strive for a bespoke and diverse environment, at the forefront of development, for success in footballing and non-footballing pathways. There is no compromise on our alignment of elite football, unparalleled education and life-enriching experiences. We take pride in producing talented footballers and exceptional young people.
We also have a responsibility to ensure every young person has an experience that provides a platform for success in life and to create a system for ongoing care. It is important we acknowledge and work closely with the families and carers of the players, and the relationships we build allow us to all support the young people in our programme and beyond. We genuinely hope all the young people in our care have a life-changing experience at Brighton & Hove Albion.
A final thank you to our academy management teams and our academy staff. Day in and day out they give everything to help us maintain the high standards we have become known for. Long-term player development involves many people over many years. I have been at the club for ten years this month and so many academy staff have contributed to where we are today. It is our responsibility to honour that legacy, support our players to maximise their potential and hope they help write the next exciting chapter in the club’s history.