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In less than three weeks Wanderers’ academy will find out if it has retained Category Two status – but one statistic points to all being well at Lostock.
As part of the Premier League’s Elite Player Performance Plan every youth set-up in the country has been awarded a ‘productivity score’ based on the players it has produced in the last three years.
Wanderers finished fourth out of all 92 clubs in English football – a finding which has delighted Jimmy Phillips, the club’s long-serving head of academy.
“It makes fantastic reading,” he told The Bolton News. “We still don’t know the result of the audit we had in March but I think something like that reflects very well on the hard work which has gone in here from our staff.”
Boltonian Phillips has been at the helm since 2008, when he succeeded Chris Sulley, and has been a respected member of the backroom staff since he retired from playing in 2000 having played more than 400 times for his hometown club.
Plenty has changed around the 40-acre site during that time, not least financially.
“The cost of running the academy has definitely become more manageable,” said Phillips. “Due to the increase in grant funding from the Premier League for academies, which has gone from £510,000 to £620,000, and Ken Anderson’s decision to get Digital Bank on board to help fund the academy, I think the overall cost to the club is in the region of £400,000 a year. When I took over we were spending £1.8million.
“We have trimmed the budgets, cut costs around the structure, so we are running a very streamlined operation.
“We still have 17 full-time staff and I’d guess around 25 part-time staff but the cost to the club is the lowest it has ever been. If we continue with the productivity then hopefully the club goes from strength to strength.”
Lostock is now called home not only by the academy but also Phil Parkinson’s first team. And the amalgamation, brought about by the sale of Euxton last Easter, has brought about some very positive results for the young players, Phillips explained.
“It reminds me very much of the times when Big Sam first got the job,” he said. “There’s a real feeling of togetherness.
“We’re all cramped into such a small office space if we didn’t get along it would be chaos but thankfully the six people who came in alongside the manager and our new academy staff have blended in really well.”
Alongside Peter Reid, Phillips was handed the unenviable task of walking Wanderers through the end of their last season in the Championship.
All-but relegated on his appointment, the 51-year-old continued the trend set initially by Neil Lennon and gave greater first team exposure to the player who had come through the academy system.
Chances in League One have been harder to come by as the transfer embargo threw up a number of issues on player registration.
But Parkinson’s proximity has proved an incentive to the younger players in the camp, says the former interim boss.
“When we came in last season we gave chances, some of which was because of circumstances,” Phillips recalled. “Some of the senior players were not at their best for a variety of reasons. But I had no fear giving them a chance because I knew the players.
“Quite often in the past the first team management would be so consumed in their own jobs they wouldn’t get to know the players as much.
“This season, for the first time ever, when I went through the release process with the players the manager sat in the room.
“That is because he knew every player. He knew how they’d played, watched the Under-18s games on a Saturday morning before a game at the Macron, regularly attends the Under-23s with his staff, so that’s a huge bonus for our academy players.
“Every boy – whether kept on or released – will have had an opportunity to impress the first team management. We hopefully won’t make any wrong decisions.”
David Lee’s Under-23s survived a huge cull of players last summer to just miss out of a play-off spot this season while Nicky Spooner’s Under-18s just paid the price for too many late-season draws, ending up fourth in their league.
Phillips is upbeat about the standard of players Parkinson may soon have to choose from but accepts the academy will generally be judged on what cream rises to the top.
“There are peaks and troughs,” he said. “Our Under-16s going through into first years this season we’ve got some players with great attacking talent – the likes of which we haven’t seen for a few years now. We’re really looking forward to working with those boys.
“And of the seven first-year scholars this year, four have been with the club since the Under-nines. We feel the system is working but it always comes down to opportunity.”
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As part of the Premier League’s Elite Player Performance Plan every youth set-up in the country has been awarded a ‘productivity score’ based on the players it has produced in the last three years.
Wanderers finished fourth out of all 92 clubs in English football – a finding which has delighted Jimmy Phillips, the club’s long-serving head of academy.
“It makes fantastic reading,” he told The Bolton News. “We still don’t know the result of the audit we had in March but I think something like that reflects very well on the hard work which has gone in here from our staff.”
Boltonian Phillips has been at the helm since 2008, when he succeeded Chris Sulley, and has been a respected member of the backroom staff since he retired from playing in 2000 having played more than 400 times for his hometown club.
Plenty has changed around the 40-acre site during that time, not least financially.
“The cost of running the academy has definitely become more manageable,” said Phillips. “Due to the increase in grant funding from the Premier League for academies, which has gone from £510,000 to £620,000, and Ken Anderson’s decision to get Digital Bank on board to help fund the academy, I think the overall cost to the club is in the region of £400,000 a year. When I took over we were spending £1.8million.
“We have trimmed the budgets, cut costs around the structure, so we are running a very streamlined operation.
“We still have 17 full-time staff and I’d guess around 25 part-time staff but the cost to the club is the lowest it has ever been. If we continue with the productivity then hopefully the club goes from strength to strength.”
Lostock is now called home not only by the academy but also Phil Parkinson’s first team. And the amalgamation, brought about by the sale of Euxton last Easter, has brought about some very positive results for the young players, Phillips explained.
“It reminds me very much of the times when Big Sam first got the job,” he said. “There’s a real feeling of togetherness.
“We’re all cramped into such a small office space if we didn’t get along it would be chaos but thankfully the six people who came in alongside the manager and our new academy staff have blended in really well.”
Alongside Peter Reid, Phillips was handed the unenviable task of walking Wanderers through the end of their last season in the Championship.
All-but relegated on his appointment, the 51-year-old continued the trend set initially by Neil Lennon and gave greater first team exposure to the player who had come through the academy system.
Chances in League One have been harder to come by as the transfer embargo threw up a number of issues on player registration.
But Parkinson’s proximity has proved an incentive to the younger players in the camp, says the former interim boss.
“When we came in last season we gave chances, some of which was because of circumstances,” Phillips recalled. “Some of the senior players were not at their best for a variety of reasons. But I had no fear giving them a chance because I knew the players.
“Quite often in the past the first team management would be so consumed in their own jobs they wouldn’t get to know the players as much.
“This season, for the first time ever, when I went through the release process with the players the manager sat in the room.
“That is because he knew every player. He knew how they’d played, watched the Under-18s games on a Saturday morning before a game at the Macron, regularly attends the Under-23s with his staff, so that’s a huge bonus for our academy players.
“Every boy – whether kept on or released – will have had an opportunity to impress the first team management. We hopefully won’t make any wrong decisions.”
David Lee’s Under-23s survived a huge cull of players last summer to just miss out of a play-off spot this season while Nicky Spooner’s Under-18s just paid the price for too many late-season draws, ending up fourth in their league.
Phillips is upbeat about the standard of players Parkinson may soon have to choose from but accepts the academy will generally be judged on what cream rises to the top.
“There are peaks and troughs,” he said. “Our Under-16s going through into first years this season we’ve got some players with great attacking talent – the likes of which we haven’t seen for a few years now. We’re really looking forward to working with those boys.
“And of the seven first-year scholars this year, four have been with the club since the Under-nines. We feel the system is working but it always comes down to opportunity.”
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