Academy Manager Robin Nicholls has hailed a “really successful” 2025 for the academy, as well as reflecting on the Club’s current development pathways.
In the 2024-25 season, 26% of league minutes within the Club’s first team came from academy graduates, with Nicholls describing his pride at the academy’s role in the club’s 2025 successes.
He explained: “It has been a really successful year for the academy.
“Obviously, this year, it is hard to ignore the Club’s promotion and the impact that the academy had on that.
“The promotion day was surreal, with Tommy [Watson] scoring the winner, Dan Neil captaining the team, Anthony Patterson being voted Player of the Match, and Chris Rigg becoming the youngest ever starter in a play-off final.
“The players and their families have put in hundreds of hours through their journeys.
“For example, leading up to Tommy’s goal in the 95th minute in the final, there were 10 years behind that of travelling everywhere and putting in the hours at the training ground.
“To see our academy play such an important role in executing that plan and achieving it is something that makes me really proud.
“Looking back, not just on that day but the season as a whole, we achieved some special days as an academy, thanks to the hard work of the players and the staff.”
The calendar year has seen many players transition up the age groups, with the Academy Manager hailing the opportunities and experiences the year has provided for all academy players.
“We are all about giving players opportunities throughout the age groups at the Club,” Nicholls continued.
“You will have often seen our Under-18s mix with our Under-21s, Under-15s with Under-16s, and Under-9s with Under-10s, etc.
“We try to create those individual working environments for each player, and playing up is an option for them if they need that at the time.
“At the Club, we try to create the best individual circumstances for each player to develop, and the U18s and U21s are a great example of that from this year.
“We’ve had players move from U18s, where you are playing against people of a similar age to you, to the U21s, where you are exposed to some seasoned professionals.
“It is a great development tool that we use, and it’s great to have seen some of the individual journeys this season.”
As well as internal progression, 2025 has seen the likes of Trey Ogunsuyi and Tom Lavery make loan moves away from the club, and Nicholls has discussed the significance of loan chapters in the progression of academy players.
He said: “Loan moves are a really important step for players at stages in their careers, where we need to decide along with them and their families, when the right time is for them to play senior football.
“To find the right loan move for players, both on and off the pitch, is a really important part of the programme.
“What we’re trying to do, as well as we can, is trying to secure better loans and opportunities for the boys.
“It’s great to see a number of players step out and play their first senior minutes this season; whether that is Trey in the SPL, Tom over in Ireland, Matty [Young] continuing his journey at Salford or a number of players going into Step 5 and 6 locally is equally important.
“Some of those, who are involved in a foreign environment, is fantastic and something that sets them apart from the experiences that we offer here.
“For them to go out, have those experiences and come back into our fold is really positive, and hopefully leads them to make that transition to the Club’s first team.”