After 12 months of planning, discussions and meetings, a new project has been launched to give the Centre of Excellence players the best chance of reaching their potential for the future.

The new scheme involves all the players from the Under-8 to Under-12 squad travelling from all over the region one afternoon a week for extended contact time, rather than the traditional evening coaching sessions.

Centre of Excellence Manager Matt Walker explains, "It started out as an idea based upon European club models in countries like Holland, France, Germany and the Czech Republic, where a centralised method of coaching excellence exists where performers in certain sports live, train and go to school in one central location.

"Whilst clubs like Watford have the resources to adopt such a model, our more modest resources meant that we had to think differently to get this project off the ground. Jez, Tom and I discussed it at length, put a model together, and then tested the water with those concerned to gauge their thoughts."

The last nine months have been spent in dialogue with parents, over 50 schools of the players involved and within the club to see how the Youth Department could make this happen.

The scheme is based at Comberton Village College with 14 journeys transporting the boys in from all over the region to the Cambridge school. Matt explains that it is "all hands to the pump" as our coaching and office staff go out to collect the boys, in addition to a number of parents whose daily routine allows them to help out.

It is hoped that through this afternoon school release, where the players will have more time with specialist coaches working not only on their game play but aspects such as their psychological approach and mental strength, the coaches will accelerate their development and add to the quality that already exists.

"This is a very exciting project for us," adds Matt. "We are trying to match what clubs much higher up the leagues with much greater finances can do. We are trying to be as forward thinking as possible and we hope this will help us to ensure that we have more players coming through our Centre of Excellence who can then go on to reach the level required to be a scholar (under-18).

"When the previous youth scheme collapsed, all the players left for other clubs. Since the current youth scheme began we have only competed evenly with other clubs in our recruitment at our younger ages (U8-U12). In our older age groups (U13+) we are constantly looking to add to the quality of the squads.

"Currently we have to scour the country for talented players released by other clubs to add to those from within our U16 group, who are competing for a scholarship place, but with new players we have had no input into their on the field and off the field development."

The Youth Development staff envisage that this new scheme will mean that in future many more scholars will have been involved with Cambridge United for 8-10 years, which can only help to produce high quality individuals.

Matt continues, "Comberton Village College Principal Stephen Munday and sports staff Mark Goldring and Nigel Carrick have helped immensely with the project and it couldn't have taken place without them and the cooperation of the players' schools. The players will have their academic progress carefully monitored and it will be a case of all parties involved - players, parents, schools and club - working hard to make sure this scheme continues.

"We have a very talented group of young players at the club, but it is how we work with these players to nurture them and correctly prepare them for the future that is vital in how successful they will be. We want to have as much control over that as we can and to invest as much quality time with the boys in developing their all-round character. This scheme is the beginning of a model we hope to build upon in the future."

Despite the Youth Department's well-documented struggle with the Football League and the FA over the last few seasons to gain parity with other full time youth schemes, this innovative project can only benefit the club in the future.

While the first team compete outside the Football League these funding problems make the job of developing players for the future very difficult, and despite this the Youth Department continue to come up with methods of producing talent.

However, the issue of funding is never far away from their thoughts and talk has already begun about this season's major fundraiser to beat last year's walk from Torquay to Cambridge. Watch this space!

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