New academy manager Dean Wright has outlined the recruitment strategy at Playford Road and some of the challenges the club faces when it comes to scouting and retaining young players.

Among the staff recently appointed at Playford Road is Alex Kaufman, the head of academy recruitment, who, like Wright, previously worked at Norwich City, as their East Anglia academy scout.

Wright says Kaufman has a vital role to play: “Alex is the head of academy recruitment, so he has got a big job in terms of the strategy of what we’re trying to do. For me, the core elements of any academy are coaching and recruitment - you’ve got to find good players and then you’ve got to make them better.

“That sounds really basic, but that’s the crux of it. There are loads of other things which go with it that are probably equally as important in combination but if your coaching and your recruitment aren’t right, you’re not going to achieve what you’re there to do if those two things aren’t right.

“Having worked up the road, there’s an issue with other clubs being more dominant in this area than we are, not just Norwich, Colchester are in this area, Cambridge, so there is a lot of competition for players and part of our strategy from a recruitment point of view is that we have to be the number one choice in this area.

“We have to have a programme that warrants that. If we’re not good, people are going to explore other options.

“We have to be the number one, so the best kid in Suffolk has to be at Ipswich, not at another club and that’s the challenge that Alex has got really, to make sure that we set a structure, that we’ve got people out making sure we’re spotting the best players, that we’re proactive, that we get players into us quickly and efficiently rather than missing a player so that by the time we see them they are somewhere else.

“Having that real drive with recruitment that we’re always looking to get the best players that are available to us, that we’re first in the queue and they’re coming to us.

“That starts at probably six or seven years of age. We’re now looking at what we’re going to do in February half-term to run some recruitment events to make sure that we can set up a group of six-year-olds, which will be the first time that they’ve come into a club and make sure that they’re here before they go in anywhere else.

“The call will inevitably come at some point if they’re a talented player, whether that’s at six, seven, eight, ‘Do you want to come here?’ and they say, ‘No, we’re alright, it’s 10 minutes to go to Playford Road, I don’t really want to have to drive to another club because he’s happy where he is, the coaching’s good, the people are good and we’re going to stay where we are’.

“Which is not necessarily the case at the moment, if I’m honest. And having been up the road, I know from first-hand experience of coming into this area and trying to take the best players, which happens in every part of the country, it’s the world that we’re in.

“But we have a really good catchment area in terms of where we’re at. We can reach all the way through Essex, all the way up to Cambridgeshire.”

Wright admits that having a category one club close by can lead to the Blues losing players on occasion, however, he feels the relationships players establish in academies can often prove more important.

“I think a little bit,” he said. “But I’m a really big believer that the people at the club are what people will buy into.

“You’re going to get some people that think it’s a Premier League club, it’s a cat one club of they’ve got a nicer, shinier gym, you’re going to get some of that obviously, but having worked at smaller clubs, I’ve always worked at underdog clubs and I quite like that.

“At Bury we were in the centre of Greater Manchester and with the number of clubs that are there, everything’s a fight for a player. The same at Huddersfield, you’re in the middle of Yorkshire, you’ve got Leeds, the Sheffield clubs, Manchester’s just over the hills 35, 40 minutes away.

“I’ve always worked in areas where it’s really competitive and I do think people buy into people, so if you’ve got good people and you run a good programme, then people will buy into that, parents particularly because parents are entrusting their child for a lot of time. Sometimes they’re coming in three, four, five times a week to an academy and you’ve got to buy into good people with that.

“And that’s something that we have to work on regardless of what division we’re in, what category of academy we’ve got, how good our Astroturf is compared to another club’s Astroturf, it has to be good people. People who are good at what they do but people who care for players and are there for the right reasons.

“I think if you create that atmosphere and that culture, people will get drawn to that anyway.

“The other bit with losing players is it’s just part of the landscape now. Particularly with Brexit, the big clubs are looking internally in this country now.

“The U16 age group, it’s ruthless out there now, and I’ve seen it from both sides, of being at a club that buys players from other clubs but also gets targeted from clubs above. It is just the way that it is now, that the bigger clubs are predatory, that’s how it works.

“It works at every level, it works at the top level at the game as well and that’s filtered down into academies, which is not for me really because you get all the links with everything else, with agents and all the other stuff involved, which is not for me when you’re talking about kids’ football effectively.

“There’s all that at play, but I do genuinely think it’s about people. If we get good people who care for the kids, the players have a connection to the club and think, ‘Actually why would I leave because I’m looked after here, I’m happy, I’m getting better, I get challenged, why would you leave?’.

“I think that was probably the case with a player in the summer, he had an opportunity to go to a bigger club with a better training ground and all the rest of it but actually were they going to give him the care and support and pathway that we were giving him? And ultimately they said they were going to back what we were doing, which is what we’ve got to continue to do.

“And the other side of it is if one of the big clubs seriously wants one of your players, same as it is with the first team, they will keep going until they get them but then that has to be the right thing for us as a club, that financially we get rewarded for the work that we’ve done with a player.

“And that that goes into our system to make sure we’ve got another five, eight, 10 of the same thing coming through again and we keep that conveyor belt of talent moving through the academy.

“The main aim obviously is for them to get to our team, but we have to be realistic and know that that might not always happen and we might get a player who is an outstanding talent that we lose at 15, 16, 17, 18 or whatever it is and as long as that filters back into the system and we are then able to go again and keep producing, then that is the way of the academy system now, that happens right across the country.

“A big part of the strategy or a big part of the way I work is culture, environment, making sure people are challenged and engaged and enthusiastic but happy and want to be there and love coming to Ipswich Town.

“I think if you do that, you have got a really good chance of people going, ‘Actually, we’re happy, we don’t want to get unsettled, we don’t want our son to move to another part of the country or have to stay with another family or do more travelling than we need to do. We’re happy where we are and we believe in what you guys are trying to do’.

“We have to do that, we can’t just sit and surrender and go, ‘You guys just take all our players’, we can’t do that, we have to put up a bit of a fight but I think with the realisation that if a top-six Premier League club wants one of your players and they desperately want them, they’re going to keep going and keep going until they get them, and then that’s the bit where we have to make sure we get the best deal for us as a club.

“The same as it would be with the first team. If we’re going to lose a player and we have to accept we’re going to lose him, we get the best deal we possibly can.”

Moving to a bigger club, such as Tottenham, who were the side to make an approach for a Town U16s player over the summer, doesn’t necessarily prove a good move for a player. A big fish at an academy like Town's might find themselves in a different position if they opt to move.

“At this type of club, there might be one or two in an age group that are of that level, at a place like that they’re collecting those types of players, so you might be one of 20 and that does change it,” Wright said.

“I’ve sat on the other side of the fence where I’ve been at a club that buys players from clubs further down the chain than us but it’s not always the best thing, it’s not always the right thing for the family, for the kid, it affects school, it affects travelling, there’s loads of things and sometimes sticking with a club like this where we’ve got to be good.

“We’ve got to produce players, we’ve got to develop players, we’ve got to have a coaching programme, a development programme, a physical programme, all of the things have to be in place for the players to go, ‘Yes, we’ll stick with that because we know that that’s what it’s going to produce at the end. If I engage with it and I do the right things, I’m going to get good coaching, I’m going to get a physical development programme and I’m going to be given all the opportunity to progress’.

“And then the bit that every academy manager in the country would want is opportunity, a pathway and I genuinely believe we’re developing that here.

“The kids have to be good enough, there’s no gifts, the first team’s not a charity to just hand over debuts because someone’s an academy product, it doesn’t work like that. The kids have to be good enough, but if they are good enough I do genuinely believe the first team staff will give them a chance.”

"Town have established relationships with non-league clubs further afield within their catchment area, among them Billericay Town in Essex, and Wright aims to build upon them.

“The link with Billericay Town was something that was forged before we started. That’s a really good thing that the previous regime had set up and it’s a great location for us in terms of scouting players in Essex and then bringing them to an assessment centre where they get a little bit of coaching and then say, ‘Right, you’re ready to go up to the academy’.

“That’s been really successful and the guys that are involved in that are excellent at what they do and we’re trying to build on that make it as good as it can be.

“The other part of that is linking into the work that the Ipswich Town Foundation are doing. Jason [Curtis, head of community] is someone me and Alex have both worked with previously, so that link is already pretty tight and their coverage across this area is massive.

“We’re trying to work with them as much as we can, if they identify and spot a good player at one of the centres that they’ve got around the area, there’s a smooth link and pathway into them being seen by the academy.

“And vice versa, if players come out of the academy or anything in general we can support the foundation with, then we will do to make sure that that link is close.

“But the recruitment piece is a massive one for me. I’m really recruitment-driven and I’m interested in that part of things in terms of scouting, looking for the best players, running recruitment events and constantly trying to create that culture where we’re always trying to get better and create space for new players to come in and always looking to improve.

“That probably links to the player-versus-team argument, that we have to be about players not about having a set group and that’s our team and no one can ever break into it. We can’t have that, it’s got to always be constantly trying to be better.

“If there’s a player wherever that we’ve just spotted that’s going to come in and he makes the group better, that’s great, let’s not close ourselves off to that happening.

“That’s what we’re trying to create and it does create a buzz and an enthusiasm. If there’s a new player coming in, I get enthused by that, I want to go and see how they do. I’m interested in watching the game to see how that kid does, which links to the timetable and the coaching set-up that more people should be around that and we just create that development culture.”

Over the years the Blues have brought in youngsters from Ireland, Scandinavia and Iceland at 16 but Brexit has meant that avenue is closed off.

“Probably Ireland is a market that we would look at but the rules have changed there,” Wright continued. “Particularly with the Republic of Ireland where the kids can’t come over until they’re 18, which makes it a little bit harder and probably a little bit more costly when you get to that sort of age.

“That’s something in the future that we would look at if it’s an opportunity to make us better, but the first port of call has got to be to get our own house in order in terms of the locality, let’s dominate this area first and make sure that the best kids in this area are coming here.

“And we’re developing and we’re good enough we get renowned for being a good programme that the best kids Essex want to come here, the best kids in Cambridgeshire want to come here.

“That is what we’ve got to do first and foremost for me, that we get that right, that has to be something that we build from the bottom, we make sure that we have the best group of six-year-olds, seven-year-olds, 12-year-olds and so on that there’s a stream which might outlast me, I might not be here to see the group of six-year-olds that we’re putting together now end up being 19 or 20-year-olds.

“I think that’s just the responsibility of anyone in youth development, if you are passionate about youth development, you’re passionate about the players and helping the players progress and do what they want to do, but always with the understanding that we might be working to try and get the best 13-year-old that we can through the door, but knowing that we might not see the benefit of him.

“It’s the same for me now. With Cameron [Humphreys], I’ve got absolutely nothing to do with Cameron’s journey and I would never sit here and say that that’s anything to do with me because it’s not, it’s to do with the people in the recent past but also the people who worked with him when he was eight, nine, 10 because that gave him the grounding.

“Those types of people will never get any credit, but it’s important that they do because they all contribute and I’ve got a responsibility to make sure this programme is as good as it possibly can be.

“That can’t be just sorting out the 21s because they’re the ones we might get a bit of short-term success with and I’ll get a bit of credit for.

“That is important but there’s also an importance to build the whole the base of the pyramid and the foundations to make sure that we’re strong over a long period of time, rather than just a short period of time. That’s got to be what we’re looking to do.”

Further instalments of TWTD's in-depth interview with Wright can be found here, here and here.

Photo: ITFC

MyBlueHeaven added 12:38 - Dec 13 Makes me wonder if the 'previous regime' was overachieving given lack of resources yet still a decent number of academy kids breaking into first team (albeit with varying degrees of success...). So if they were overachieving, that then makes me wonder what can be achieved with fully resourced and improved focus on youth development...
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Suffolkboy added 12:52 - Dec 13 Have we got the time ?
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jonwillpott added 13:47 - Dec 13 @ Suffolk Boy.....Rome was not built in a day!! lol
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monkeymagic added 16:51 - Dec 13 The bloke pictured here looks different to the bloke pictured in the other article about Dean Wright. Who is the real Dean Wright, is this actually a picture of Alex Kaufman?!
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ronnyd added 21:23 - Dec 13 Think it's the facial hair that's done it monkeymagig, barnet is the same.
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LegendofthePhoenix added 07:15 - Dec 14 Wow, what a great description of how the academy is being structured and he philosophy behind it. And how it is so important now with Brexit. It sounds to me as though they really will want it to become a Cat 1 academy at some stage, but making us the best place for youngsters across E Anglia to want to come to, and to remain at rather than getting poached, seems like we have a great vision. This club is being run by people who really, really know how to run a football club. These are the foundations that will make ITFC a real force again in English football and shows that the owners are not here for short term gain, they are here for what could be a long journey. Superb stuff.

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hossblue added 09:27 - Dec 14 Where does this leave Bryan Klug?
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