In what has been another incredible year for our football club, it has been a privilege for us to contribute as an academy.
To see home-grown players like Lewis Dunk, Solly March, Evan Ferguson and Tom McGill continue to lead the way in the first-team squad, Jack Hinshelwood – having been in the academy since the age of eight – has also made a significant impact this season, while Josh Duffus made his first-team debut in our Europa League win in AEK Athens.
With Benicio Baker-Boaitey also making his Premier League debut at Chelsea, it has been an exciting and rewarding period. In addition, Leigh Kavanagh, Luca Barrington, Ben Jackson, Samy Chouchane, Mark O’Mahoney and Jack Hinchy have also been included in matchday squads.
The vision of the academy is to produce players for Brighton & Hove Albion and there is no better feeling for staff and no greater motivation for players than seeing one of our own play for the first team. Our gratitude goes to Roberto De Zerbi and his coaching staff who continue to support us and, most importantly, trust our young players to step onto the biggest stages. We are fortunate that we have a club that provides a pathway that is very real and second to none.
The future is bright too, with Shannon Ruth and the under-21 squad having a fine start to this season, and Inigo Calderon and our under- 18s progressing in the prestigious FA Youth Cup. Ben Smith and the under-16 group had an impressive tournament at the U16 Nationals and congratulations to our ever-increasing number of youth internationals across the age groups.
Our younger age groups continue to have a range of festivals, activities and experiences at home and abroad, on and off the pitch, as we continue to strive to develop good players and good people. Our games programme has included fixtures against Bayern Munich, Anderlecht, K.R.C. Genk, Olympique Lyonnais, Valencia and Celtic.
Scenes 😍😍 A long time coming that one. Travelling fans were unreal as always 💙🤍 pic.twitter.com/DRlXYQBiIH
— Andrew Moran (@AndrewMorannn) November 25, 2023
It is great to see many of our young players on loan also making an impact, such as Jensen Weir (Blackpool), Andy Moran (Blackburn), Odel Offiah (Hearts), Jeremy Sarmiento (West Brom), Steven Alzate (Standard Liege), Carl Rushworth (Swansea), James Beadle (Oxford), Cameron Peupion (Cheltenham), Ed Turns (Leyton Orient), Mark Leonard (Northampton) and Bailey Smith
(Worthing).
We are fortunate that many of our players go on to have professional careers and it should be noted that since 2016, more than 40 have earned contracts across the European leagues.
There is, too, a much bigger picture of day-to-day academy life.
We have ten teams, 200 players and, essentially, a primary school, secondary school, college and residential programme all under one roof alongside our elite football pathway. Not every young person that walks into the American Express Elite Football Performance Centre will play in the Premier League – it can be a fine line and many players who have gone on to great success have had to overcome some form of
disappointment and setbacks.
It is something we constantly have to be mindful of and the Premier League and its clubs are doing some excellent work. At the Albion, we offer aftercare support for our players and the doors are always open for us to support people beyond their time here. We want all players who have been part of our academy to have a life-changing experience, great memories and leave a better player and person.
Young people receive some unbelievable experiences through our pathway, making friends for life, meeting their idols, playing in stadiums, enjoying trips and tours, first-time flights and visits abroad. We take this responsibility incredibly seriously and we have a wonderful team of people that work tirelessly to develop and care for our young players.
We have received praise from the Premier League, OFSTED and Barnardo’s for our work in the player-care, education and safeguarding spaces, and we were also proud to host HRH the Duke of Edinburgh recently to share work from the DofE programme.
On behalf of all our academy staff I’d like to thank Mr Bloom and the board for the ongoing support and incredible environment in which we work. We are also fortunate to have great leadership throughout the club: Paul Barber, Paul Mullen, David Weir, Mike Cave, Rose Read and the executive committee.
My thanks, too, to our players, families and carers, and our staff in operations, administration, coaching, performance, medical, analysis, kit and equipment, education, recruitment, player care and safeguarding. I came to the club ten years ago and wanted to be a part of something special. We genuinely are. We also remain acutely aware of the history and heritage of our club and hope to continue to provide an academy system everyone can be proud of and a lasting legacy in the years ahead.