Academy Granted Category 2 Status
https://www.burnleyfootballclub.com/new ... -2-status/

This will be merged

Great news - hopefully it will really help us to attract more of the better local young prospects.

Great news

Excellent news

Brilliant news
UTC

I've just come off the phone to the academy manager but I don't think he was aware that it was going to be announced today. He was at a Premier League meeting yesterday which ratified it.

This is fantastic news for the club, absolutely fantastic, and well done to everyone who has been involved in getting us there.

I was just going to start a thread on the youth team but will add the info to this post. The Up the Clarets Youth Foundation have just agreed to sponsor the youth team for a pre-season tournament they are playing next month in Prague.

OK news.

This is great news!

Having read the article on the club website does anyone know what it takes to get to Category 1, expect this is some way off but would be of interest to know what is required?

Decades wrote:This is great news!

Having read the article on the club website does anyone know what it takes to get to Category 1, expect this is some way off but would be of interest to know what is required?

An extra 2m a year in costs roughly for a start

"The Clarets’ facilities are now at Category 1 standard, with the EPPP audit also covering areas including coaching programmes, staffing levels and qualifications, strategy and leadership, education and welfare and player progression."

That's very good to see re the standard of facilities.

Means the youth teams can play against a better standard of team and we can attract better players to the team. Great to see us making these strides forward.

With the way things are going down the road, our academies could well have the same status soon.

Sidney1st wrote:"The Clarets’ facilities are now at Category 1 standard, with the EPPP audit also covering areas including coaching programmes, staffing levels and qualifications, strategy and leadership, education and welfare and player progression."

That's very good to see re the standard of facilities.

There's no difference between Cat 1 & Cat 2 facilities, but the difference in the facilities we've got now to what we are had are amazing.

Fantastic news, and opens a whole raft load of opportunities for the kids. It can only benefit the club big style in the years to come.
Here's hoping we have another Jay Rod break through soon.
UTC

That's great news. This will all be part of Sean Dyche's legacy UTC

Question - why haven't we gone for category 1 status if the facilities are that standard? Is it a case of being too big a jump at once? Or is it because it simply costs too much in comparison to Category 2? Genuinely don't know much about how it all works so would be interested to know.

I think we needed to have the correct staff etc and we probably also needed to prove that the staff were all qualified in their respective areas etc.

I think I remember from reading the statement when Pepper signed up that part of his job was to ensure we had the right staff and the right training for them.

IndigoLake wrote:Question - why haven't we gone for category 1 status if the facilities are that standard? Is it a case of being too big a jump at once? Or is it because it simply costs too much in comparison to Category 2? Genuinely don't know much about how it all works so would be interested to know.

I see it a walk before we run kind of thing, the costs increase when you get to Cat1. Need to see if being Cat2 makes the difference we think it will first.

Sidney1st wrote:I think we needed to have the correct staff etc and we probably also needed to prove that the staff were all qualified in their respective areas etc.

I think I remember from reading the statement when Pepper signed up that part of his job was to ensure we had the right staff and the right training for them.

Fair enough. I'm certainly not complaining - this is great news either way We certainly seem to be moving in the right direction and Pepper must be one of the reasons.

Dom wrote:I see it a walk before we run kind of thing, the costs increase when you get to Cat1. Need to see if being Cat2 makes the difference we think it will first.

That makes sense. It certainly sounds like it will be beneficial for our youth and development players to be in more competitive leagues.

IndigoLake wrote:Question - why haven't we gone for category 1 status if the facilities are that standard? Is it a case of being too big a jump at once? Or is it because it simply costs too much in comparison to Category 2? Genuinely don't know much about how it all works so would be interested to know.

Much bigger jump and imagine if we'd tried that and failed it, gone back to Cat 3 and would not have been able to request an audit for three years.

Just got an article on site - linked below to save starting another thread on this one

Brilliant day as Burnley get a Category 2 academy
http://www.uptheclarets.com/brilliant-d ... -2-academy" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

ClaretTony wrote:Much bigger jump and imagine if we'd tried that and failed it, gone back to Cat 3 and would not have been able to request an audit for three years.

How ridiculous is that? 3 years to be re-assessed. No wonder we are behind other Nations at youth level.

minnieclaret wrote:How ridiculous is that? 3 years to be re-assessed. No wonder we are behind other Nations at youth level.

You might want to check other nations before making that comment. Doesn't sound ridiculous to me at all given the nature of youth football.

ClaretTony wrote:Much bigger jump and imagine if we'd tried that and failed it, gone back to Cat 3 and would not have been able to request an audit for three years.

Wow, I had no idea! 3 years is an awfully long time in the fast moving world of football. We did right then!

Gives clubs time to prove they can operate at the level they've been given I suppose.

Less than 15 minutes away from kick off in a World Cup semi final for under20s

Great news. Congratulations to all involved in this big step up. Looking even better for the future.

Out of interest, how long has the academy category system been around? Did it start when Premier League was created? How long were Burnley Cat 3? and, are there lower categories for smaller clubs?

When Burnley won the FA Youth Cup in 1968 and had the "team of the 70s" I assume we would have been Category 1+.

And, thinking of clubs that fall down the leagues, can clubs also get relegated down the category levels?

Rovers were awarded Cat 2 weren't they a few years back, due to a paperwork error?

They haven't had Cat 1 for all that long.

Paul Waine wrote:Great news. Congratulations to all involved in this big step up. Looking even better for the future.

Out of interest, how long has the academy category system been around? Did it start when Premier League was created? How long were Burnley Cat 3? and, are there lower categories for smaller clubs?

When Burnley won the FA Youth Cup in 1968 and had the "team of the 70s" I assume we would have been Category 1+.

And, thinking of clubs that fall down the leagues, can clubs also get relegated down the category levels?

EPPP has only been around since 2012, prior to that there were academies and centres of excellence. We had a centre of excellence because we never had the facilities to have an academy.

When EPPP first came in, we applied for Cat 3 status but failed the audit because of the incompetent Jason Blake. We were given time to get our department in order and when re-audited were in the Premier League and they pushed it through. With the club moving forward in terms of the first team, we really had to move the academy upwards and Cat 2 is about right for us now but without the spend at Gawthorpe we couldn't have got it no matter how good the youth department was.

U20's 1-0 down after 2 minutes. Theres time yet!

The Academy news is fantastic - great times to be a Claret.

Excellent news and a huge step in the right direction after a dodgy few years in terms of youth strategy.

ClaretTony wrote:I've just come off the phone to the academy manager but I don't think he was aware that it was going to be announced today. He was at a Premier League meeting yesterday which ratified it.

This is fantastic news for the club, absolutely fantastic, and well done to everyone who has been involved in getting us there.

I was just going to start a thread on the youth team but will add the info to this post. The Up the Clarets Youth Foundation have just agreed to sponsor the youth team for a pre-season tournament they are playing next month in Prague.

"Our academy manager was at a premier league meeting"

Being able to say that was the stuff of dreams less than 10 years ago.

We've come a long way.

Looking at Gawthorpe from Grove Lane in Padiham it really does give you an enormous feeling of pride.

"23 Full Time staff employed at Academy level " ...It really is an impressive operation now.

am super pleased for everyone involved and I see it as another major step forward in the footballing world in general, amazing what can happen when everyone is pulling together

When can when can we go for Cat 1?

This is excellent news and what a great time to be a Claret with things just getting better and better

Onwards and upwards

Sidney1st wrote:Rovers were awarded Cat 2 weren't they a few years back, due to a paperwork error?

They haven't had Cat 1 for all that long.

Been Cat 1 since EPPP was introduced I think

As a fairly regular supporter of the Youth Team matches at Gawthorpe is is great news of the Cat 2 status.
Pity there are not more fans down there for the Saturday morning 11am K.O. games as Michael Duff is doing a great job as Youth Team Coach.
Watch out for the name of Oliver Younger who won the Youth Team Player of the Year. Plays in the centre of the defence and I am looking forward to seeing him the centre of the defence for the first team in a few years time.

Super news, great time to be a Claret.

MrTopTier wrote:Super news, great time to be a Claret.

What's happened at our club in last 3-4 years is incredible. Obviously being in the Premier League has been key to it all but we've got people running the club who have seen that providing the best possible facilities and moving the academy forward is so important.

great achievement by the club !
https://www.burnleyfootballclub.com/new ... -2-status/

What does this mean in real terms for the club?

See thread

http://www.uptheclarets.com/messageboar ... =2&t=17481" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Really great news and the facilities look top drawer. Congratulations to all involved, we all need to adjust our thinking away from "little old Burnley" as we are a different prospect to what we were even just 12 short months ago.

Its fantastic the progress we have made off the field in such a small amount of time.

randomclaret2 wrote:"23 Full Time staff employed at Academy level " ...It really is an impressive operation now.

Wow - that is a lot of staff. Must be a wage bill of £1m a year. That kind of amount is not far off next years total income for Blackburn !!

The club have made massive strides in this area and Gawthorpe truly is an incredible facility.

From a youth set up point of view let's hope this means we can start to get some youngsters through in the future - as a club we need to try and replicate the likes of Southampton. Hopefully one of the first changes we will see is more of the best youngsters in Burnley choosing our club before the likes of Blackburn and even the Manchester clubs.

TVC15 wrote:From a youth set up point of view let's hope this means we can start to get some youngsters through in the future - as a club we need to try and replicate the likes of Southampton. Hopefully one of the first changes we will see is more of the best youngsters in Burnley choosing our club before the likes of Blackburn and even the Manchester clubs.

It's going to be a long process but it will be good to see more players coming through from the junior teams to make the youths, then more of them to go through to the u23s and then more of them to make the first team. It will take some considerable time for us to get there but will be good to see the progress.