ACADEMY POSITION CREATED

Darren Hare reveals a change of structure in the Academy department

Darren Hare will be starting a new role very soon and he explains how some slight changes the club will be making will affect the structure of the youth department.

“Under the new Elite Player Performance Plan it is considered best practice to have two full time coaches working with our younger players, and it is also recommended that the Academy Manager doesn’t have a coaching function, more of a management role.

"This means we are going to recruit a new U18 coach.

"As a result there will be myself, Mark Patterson and the new candidate now being able to spend a lot more time focusing on developing the finer touches on some of our youngsters.

“That means me taking a step back off the training ground and having more of a strategic role.

“In addition to this, there are some exciting new projects we are looking to develop with the community trust, and this new role will allow me some time to help the staff in that department move forwards.

“It’s an exciting opportunity for me, but also for whoever comes in because we have some great young players to work with, we have a vibrant and thriving academy at school boy level aswell and the future is bright.

“The successful candidate will be coming in to an environment which encourages our players to have freedom of expression.

“My role will be to observe all of our players and watch whichever games I want and report to the management. I am also going to continue as the Technical Director for the Girls so it will give me an opportunity to get up and watch some of their games aswell which at the moment proves difficult."

To view the job and person spec for the U18 Coach Position, and for more information on how to apply, click here.