The arrival of three home-grown players into Fleetwood Town’s first-team squad for the coming season represents a great achievement for the youth development programme at the Blue Square Bet Premier club.
Full-backs Joe Camozzi and Adam Sumner, along with central defender Jack Duggan, have begun training alongside other squad members whose experience is undoubtedly going to bring the trio of younger players on.
For the three members of Town’s County Cup winning side these are exciting times but the club has made changes to its set-up to ensure that others get every opportunity to follow them in the years to come. At the heart of the new development is former Assistant Director of Youth, Steve Carlin, who has been promoted to Director of Youth from this season. Steve is eager to start his new role: “Last season I was working with the first team and overseeing the youth players from afar. Now I will have more one-to-one contact which should enable me to orchestrate their development even further. I am unbelievably excited.”
Carlin will be dividing his time between Blackpool and Fylde College and Town’s new training base at Fylde Rugby club: “I will be at the college in the afternoons but will be down at first team training a couple of mornings a week to keep the link going to ensure that the youth players develop towards being in the first team.”
Another development within the youth set-up sees the appointment of manager and players` player of the year Alan Wright as under-18s coach.
Carlin sees this as a major benefit for Fleetwood Town: “I am really looking forward to working with someone of Alan’s experience. We will be putting the young lads through their paces and preparing them for games. Hopefully, we will be seeing others following Jack, Joe and Adam into the first team set-up. That’s my remit.”
The youth development programme made significant progress in its first year but Carlin is confident that, under the new regime, the club can take it even further: “We will learn lessons from the start we made last year and are putting a structure in place where we will ensure that all the lads involved will have something to strive for and that they are clear on their own role within the set-up.”
Alongside high-profile first-team signings from across the north-west, the development of local talent is key to the longer term success of Fleetwood Town.
The appointment of coaches of the calibre of Carlin and Wright confirms the club’s commitment to the stars of the future and should encourage all budding players within Fylde schools to work hard at developing their skills and attitude in order to be recognised and taken on.
Manager Micky Mellon held the post last season but will now concentrate on his full-time, first-team squad.
