Cambridge United today announced changes to its renowned youth scheme, reflecting both the change in the club's League status and its continuing commitment to community development and the Cambridge region.

At a meeting held on Thursday evening, the Club outlined its plans to convert the current Centre of Excellence Scholarship programme into a college-based scheme at Under-16 to 18 level.

Also at the meeting, a revised programme for the younger boys, aged 8 to 15, was outlined; the programme will become more community-based and be targeted at children local to the Cambridge region but will be headed by one of the club's existing highly-qualified coaches and operate at a similar standard to the current coaching syllabus.

Vice Chairman John Howard, who has responsibility for the Youth set-up at the club, explained, "College and community schemes are the norm in the Nationwide Conference and are becoming increasingly common in the Football League, with clubs such as Bournemouth, Bristol Rovers and Barnet switching in recent months to this structure.

"It allows clubs to work alongside colleges of higher education to offer a scheme that combines high quality, professional football training with a structured programme of education."

Howard continued, "To an extent, relegation to the Nationwide Conference has forced our hand, in that the Football League has told us that all funding for our scheme will be withdrawn from the end of this season, and as a Conference club we will not be allowed to compete in the Centre of Excellence games programme.

"The relegation of a club like United with such a well-regarded and successful youth policy has highlighted the lack of provision for the youth policies of clubs that drop out of the Football League, and we can only hope that our experience will lead the authorities to consider proper plans and processes to preserve the best elements of the youth programmes of relegated clubs, something which is simply not possible under current regulations."

The club's Youth programme has been a source of great pride over recent years, with United's youth team regularly progressing to the latter stages of the FA Youth Cup in recent years, as well as defeating Premiership Academy opposition on a number of occasions.

A stream of talent has emerged from the youth set-up over the last ten years, with players such as Danny Granville and Trevor Benjamin going on to appear at the highest level and, most recently, with John Ruddy transferring to Everton at the age of 18.

John Howard commented, "For every player who progresses through to the first team there are many more who don't, but they will still have benefited from high-quality, structured coaching and support in their personal development. That in itself is a contribution that the club can be proud of."

Howard concluded, "It is obviously very sad, given the great stream of talent that the Centre of Excellence has produced over the years, that it cannot be preserved.

"However, since circumstances dictate that we cannot keep the Centre of Excellence in operation, we are convinced that the club should continue to offer the chance of professional football training to local youngsters through a high-quality community and college based scheme developed in conjunction with the club's local community."

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