Good news. Shows the massive steps being taken forward under this directors / management team.

Great news, it has been a long road back from where it was taken to

Brilliant news! Football League trophy here we come

PremierLeagueClass wrote: ↑

Mon Jul 06, 2020 3:32 pm

Brilliant news! Football League trophy here we come

I most sincerely hope not

Great News

super news confirming what we know, that the clubs heading in the right direction in the grand scheme of things

Great news.

The games will be of a far higher standard now won't they?

Quickenthetempo wrote: ↑

Mon Jul 06, 2020 3:38 pm

Great news.

The games will be of a far higher standard now won't they?

Should make it easier to scout lads with other clubs and poach them later

Would someone be kind enough to spell out what the implications of this upgrade will be?

summitclaret wrote: ↑

Mon Jul 06, 2020 3:42 pm

Should make it easier to scout lads with other clubs and poach them later

It is fantastic and like you say should give us a greater chance of capturing some talented youth. However I'm sure I recall an interview with Dwight where one of the reasons he joined was due to the fact we were cat 2 and he didn't have to face his previous club Man United.
Funny old world is football!

Conroy92 wrote: ↑

Mon Jul 06, 2020 3:56 pm

It is fantastic and like you say should give us a greater chance of capturing some talented youth. However I'm sure I recall an interview with Dwight where one of the reasons he joined was due to the fact we were cat 2 and he didn't have to face his previous club Man United.
Funny old world is football!

We weren't even cat2 when Dwight signed in!

Fantastic news

See link
https://www.uptheclarets.com/clarets-be ... ne-academy

Hadn't seen this thread, article now on site at

https://www.uptheclarets.com/clarets-be ... ne-academy

I believe I club like ours will benefit more from the top clubs castoffs rather than our own. This isn’t a dig at all at us btw. I take it now we’ll be playing at a higher level (against bigger clubs). A great chance to build up portfolios/knowledge on players on the hope (for us) they’ll be released or deemed not good enough.

I think most clubs, for every 1 player that gets into a first team they’ll be 10 if not more that don’t make it. I know some teams and years they’ll be more joining the first team but on the all teams mostly produce players that are destined to play at a level or 2/3 lower than the first team. Hopefully we can produce our own like we have in the past, but also use knowledge to pick off the big clubs castoffs like we have in the past too.

ClaretLoup wrote: ↑

Mon Jul 06, 2020 3:43 pm

Would someone be kind enough to spell out what the implications of this upgrade will be?

Games programme will be different

This season, our under-23s have been in a league with

Barnsley
Birmingham
Bolton
Crewe
Hull
Leeds
Nottingham Forest
Sheffield United
Sheffield Wednesday
Wigan

Next season we are in with the following (based on this season's league table) - all established cat 1 academies.

Aston Villa
Fulham
Manchester United
Middlesbrough
Newcastle
Norwich
Reading
Stoke
Sunderland
Swansea
West Brom
West Ham

the work that started with Eddie Howe is now complete.

Papabendi wrote: ↑

Mon Jul 06, 2020 4:10 pm

the work that started with THE DEPARTURE OF Eddie Howe is now complete.

corrected that for you

Papabendi wrote: ↑

Mon Jul 06, 2020 4:10 pm

the work that started with Eddie Howe is now complete.

This work started when Jon Pepper took over as academy manager in 2016. Eddie Howe appointed Jason Blake as academy manager, Blake all but lost us category 3 status which would have seen the academy shut down altogether. The work started by Eddie Howe is now firmly, and mercifully, behind us.

As an American, I have no idea what the category level means.
Can someone summarize the potential benefits? Seems like a no-brainer that it would be better at attracting talent but what else?

AshevilleNCClaret wrote: ↑

Mon Jul 06, 2020 4:15 pm

As an American, I have no idea what the category level means.
Can someone summarize the potential benefits? Seems like a no-brainer that it would be better at attracting talent but what else?

There are so many benefits, but for us, looking on, it gives us a tougher games programme. From playing such as Morecambe, Carlisle and Rochdale three years ago we are now moving into the highest level of academy. Premier League 2 has two divisions, we'll be placed in the lower one but we are now competing with the big boys. It's going to be so tough but it's been damn tough getting there.

Some will be able to tell you more, adingle and dandeclaret will certainly be able to give you more information, but, rest assured, this is fantastic news.

Great news but lets hope we can afford to keep up with the upkeep

ClaretTony wrote: ↑

Mon Jul 06, 2020 4:17 pm

There are so many benefits, but for us, looking on, it gives us a tougher games programme. From playing such as Morecambe, Carlisle and Rochdale three years ago we are now moving into the highest level of academy. Premier League 2 has two divisions, we'll be placed in the lower one but we are now competing with the big boys. It's going to be so tough but it's been damn tough getting there.

Some will be able to tell you more, adingle and dandeclaret will certainly be able to give you more information, but, rest assured, this is fantastic news.

Tony will also be able to confirm that more often than not, certainly going back 6 or 7 years, teams like that regularly played us off the park

I admit to being a little naive in this area,CT. What sort of teams are we likely to meet and would Curzon Ashton still be the venue?

ClaretTony wrote: ↑

Mon Jul 06, 2020 4:06 pm

Games programme will be different

This season, our under-23s have been in a league with

Barnsley
Birmingham
Bolton
Crewe
Hull
Leeds
Nottingham Forest
Sheffield United
Sheffield Wednesday
Wigan

Next season we are in with the following (based on this season's league table) - all established cat 1 academies.

Aston Villa
Fulham
Manchester United
Middlesbrough
Newcastle
Norwich
Reading
Stoke
Sunderland
Swansea
West Brom
West Ham

Silkyskills1 wrote: ↑

Mon Jul 06, 2020 4:38 pm

I admit to being a little naive in this area,CT. What sort of teams are we likely to meet and would Curzon Ashton still be the venue?

Here you are Silky!

Great news for the club and congratulations to everybody who has worked at achieving this.

The future is Claret!

randomclaret2 wrote: ↑

Mon Jul 06, 2020 4:33 pm

Tony will also be able to confirm that more often than not, certainly going back 6 or 7 years, teams like that regularly played us off the park

We were doing so well, under the financial circumstances, when Vince and then Dobbo were running things but with them gone, then Pash gone, then Andy Farrell gone, I saw the youth team end the 2015/16 season with nine successive defeats against Bury, Tranmere, Shrewsbury, Carlisle, Accrington, Walsall, Preston, Wrexham, and Port Vale. We conceded three or more in all but one of those games. I know it is not a results business at that level, that it is about player development but it was going nowhere, and nowhere fast.

Things changed during the following season. Jon Pepper got the place organised, the under-18s had a coach who knew was he was doing again in Michael Duff and then in the following season we got the games programme for the under-23s. I've seen us get better and better at both levels over the last three years. We are now taking a leap into another level higher and it could be very tough for us initially, but what progress we are making. Brilliant.

the speed with which the club has turned around the Blake farce is quite astonishing !

Silkyskills1 wrote: ↑

Mon Jul 06, 2020 4:38 pm

I admit to being a little naive in this area,CT. What sort of teams are we likely to meet and would Curzon Ashton still be the venue?

Up to Premier League 2 - could even have Manchester United in there, but clubs from Premier League/Championship in the main with long standing cat 1 academies. Where will we play? That's a good question but I think COVID-19 will have a lot to say about that and I can quite imagine that I might not be allowed at a game at either under-18 or under-23 level for a long time. I can see them all being played at training grounds behind closed doors.

Vegas Claret wrote: ↑

Mon Jul 06, 2020 4:43 pm

the speed with which the club has turned around the Blake farce is quite astonishing !

It was no farce, you can laugh at a farce Vegas. It was a horrible period for the club with a distasteful, horrible, incompetent, nasty man in charge of our academy. I'll give Howe some credit, he made no attempt to take him back south with him.

ClaretTony wrote: ↑

Mon Jul 06, 2020 4:47 pm

It was no farce, you can laugh at a farce Vegas. It was a horrible period for the club with a distasteful, horrible, incompetent, nasty man in charge of our academy. I'll give Howe some credit, he made no attempt to take him back south with him.

very true !

did Blake get a job at another club ?

Thanks,CT.

ClaretTony wrote: ↑

Mon Jul 06, 2020 4:47 pm

It was no farce, you can laugh at a farce Vegas. It was a horrible period for the club with a distasteful, horrible, incompetent, nasty man in charge of our academy. I'll give Howe some credit, he made no attempt to take him back south with him.

Is this all true ??

Vegas Claret wrote: ↑

Mon Jul 06, 2020 4:50 pm

very true !

did Blake get a job at another club ?

No - thankfully.

Excellent reward for those who put in the hard work required to make this possible.

Burnley Football Club 2020 has evolved so much from the Burnley Football Club of 2010.

An astonishing decade of progression for the Clarets!

I remember watching a video on ClaretsPlayer about 10 years ago. It featured Clarke Carlise documenting an away trip down south with his own camcorder, it was just handi-cam footage of the team on the coach, eating in hotels and him rooming with Graham Alexander and so on.

I remember a bit when the lads turn up at Watford's training ground and Clarke is panning the camera around what looks like a humble, but professional training complex and delivers a message to the Chairman as he's filming - he says "this is what we need Mr Chairman, nothing fancy but something like this..." - Bare in mind, our players were probably changing in Portacabins at the time with no plans of improving the facilities. I'm surprised it was kept in the final edit.

But its interesting to see how far we have come. This is what fans wanted. I'm delighted and I hope we are beginning to see the fruits of our labours soon.

I'll try and dig it out

Excellent news for the club. Well done to all involved.

Here is a profile of Mr Blake
https://westcanadasocceracademy.com/jason-blake/.

MrTopTier wrote: ↑

Mon Jul 06, 2020 5:22 pm

Excellent news for the club. Well done to all involved.

Here is a profile of Mr Blake
https://westcanadasocceracademy.com/jason-blake/.

"After successfully securing category three status, he supervised the initial stages of the process that eventually saw the Academy upgraded to category two status."

He didn't successfully secure category three status, we failed the audit because of him and we only rescued it because of the 2014 promotion. As for having any involvement in the cat 2 step up, I'll let others comment on that. I know what I know.

And he was not academy director - he was academy manager.

JohnMac wrote: ↑

Mon Jul 06, 2020 4:56 pm

Excellent reward for those who put in the hard work required to make this possible.

Burnley Football Club 2020 has evolved so much from the Burnley Football Club of 2010.

An astonishing decade of progression for the Clarets!

Spot on.

Pretty impressive sounding CV

ClaretTony wrote: ↑

Mon Jul 06, 2020 5:26 pm

"After successfully securing category three status, he supervised the initial stages of the process that eventually saw the Academy upgraded to category two status."

He didn't successfully secure category three status, we failed the audit because of him and we only rescued it because of the 2014 promotion. As for having any involvement in the cat 2 step up, I'll let others comment on that. I know what I know.

And he was not academy director - he was academy manager.

Think he might have left those bits out, can’t think why!

Excellent news the damage done by past neglect can now finally be put to bed

dandeclaret is that excited at the news he's developed a stutter.

I know it is something he is passionate about and this is great news for our club, so well done to all those who've contributed over the years.

Delighted with this, a lot of people deserve a big pat on the back for this. The benefits to recruitment and the standard of competition, can only be good news for the future.

UTC

randomclaret2 wrote: ↑

Mon Jul 06, 2020 5:28 pm

Pretty impressive sounding CV

and especially telling that he is no longer involved with a club in a major league - that mixed with the way the CV is presented would have any right minded person asking an awful lot of questions as to why that should be.

It seems surprising that Leeds are only Cat 2 as they produce a number of good young players of which we have 2 with us - Charlie Taylor and Peacock-Farrell

Just read this on https://playerscout.co.uk/football-acad ... ategories/

Category One Football Academies

Only a small group of football academies are awarded with a Category One status, and not all of them are in the Premier League. Category One status is extremely hard to achieve and takes a real commitment from the club. Any football academies that have this status is a show of the quality of the coaching, equipment, facilities and strategic development that you can expect to find. Category One football academies also invest a lot to maintain their status. There are also some clubs that choose not to publicise their status in order to avoid being over approached by players and parents.

Another sign of how far we've come. Tremendous news. I'm delighted for BFC but especially for people like Dan and Tony who have, in their different ways, both worked tirelessly towards this achievement and are rightfully delighted.

ClaretTony wrote: ↑

Mon Jul 06, 2020 4:06 pm

Next season we are in with the following (based on this season's league table) - all established cat 1 academies.

Aston Villa
Fulham
Manchester United
Middlesbrough
Newcastle
Norwich
Reading
Stoke
Sunderland
Swansea
West Brom
West Ham

Out of interest why are Man U. in that list and not teams such as Liverpool?

I'm guessing, Spijed, but I think that list are second division teams.

Liverpool must be Division One.

Spijed wrote: ↑

Mon Jul 06, 2020 6:07 pm

Out of interest why are Man U. in that list and not teams such as Liverpool?

Liverpool are in the top division