‘We’e more focused on the long-term development than our next fixture’
EVEN WITH the unprecedented challenges of the coronavirus pandemic thrown in, Steve Nichol has remained steadfast in his vision for FC Halifax Town’s youth programme.
The strength of the setup has been tested by Covid, which has disrupted both the football and education halves of the programme, but Nichol’s clarity of vision and purpose remains.
“It’s made things harder, certainly in terms of recruitment because a lot of our under 16 football is deemed as grassroots and sessions have been put on hold during the pandemic,” said Nichol.
“So we aren’t able to have contact in the same way with the players as we normally would. Fortunately, last season we were in a good position when Covid hit, so we had the bulk of the players already training with us at under 16 coming into this season.
“The lads are in a full-time programme and alongside football they are following an education programme. When Covid hit the games programme was suspended, we moved to a home-based training programme and the education lessons moved online.
“Our staff were excellent during this period, particularly our tutor, Ben Hardaker who continued to educate the players online for a prolonged period while we were waiting for a Government decision regards predicted grades. This took substantial time, way longer than the decisions taken on GCSE’s and A-Levels. But with pro-active staff, our partnership with Calderdale College, and the co-operation of players and parents, we were able to work our way through it. All players achieved their final qualifications and were able to progress onto their next step.
“Fortunately, due to the educational side of our programme we have been able to continue to train and educate our players onsite during the second lockdown.
“We’re running more of a hybrid programme at the minute where they’ll do three days a week on site, and one or two days at home with the support of online lessons, and their football supported by a home training programme.“
The youth teams compete in the National League Academy League at under 19 level, and the West Riding County under 23 Development League.”
And Nichol is proud of the track record of players reaching senior football that the programme has established.
“As you can see with Jay Benn, Lucas Schofield and
Nick Crane (Benn has played for the first-team this season while Schofield and Crane have been unused substitutes), the manager and his assistant have tried to give our young players experience and integrate them in and around the first-team environment. “It is fantastic for our players to know there is a pathway.
“We are working on specific strategies to support our players bridging the gap to senior football. It takes a long time for things like this to manifest themselves, which is difficult in football because it can be such a short-term job, but there’s a lot of work going on behind-the-scenes that is helping the club move forward. But it will take time for those things to bear fruit.”
Nichol says the youth setup is benefiting from a close working relationship with Town boss Pete Wild and his assistant Chris Millington.
“With Pete and Chris, they have a background in youth development, they’re really supportive and open with wider staff at the club in what they’re trying to do, how they’re trying to develop the team with some of the principles and processes they’ve put into place, so if players go up into the first team environment, they’ve got an understanding of how the team plays or the terminology that could be used. It also helps develop a specific identity, the FC Halifax Town Way if you like. They are keen to integrate young players where possible in the first team environment and also supportive with recruitment. They know how hard it is to recruit at this level of football. We delivered an online presentation to under 16 players and parents recently, all who have a previous experience with professional clubs and Pete was eager to be part of the presentation giving an overview of how he sees the programme progressing. There’s not many clubs where the manager would support at that level.”
When Nichol first joined the club, there was just one parttime youth coach. Now, in addition to Nichol, there are two full time coaches, one full-time tutor, one part-time goalkeeping coach, one part-time strength and conditioning coach and one part-time physio.
He said: “The foundations of a strong programme are in place, to progress it’s a matter of building on what we have and getting into the detail of how we recruit, train, play and generally how we can develop our sessions or programme to further facilitate player development. The programme we now have in place is comparable with clubs at this level and above, we believe our programme is on par with many in the EFL. We’re trying to add a lot of detail around the programme, and using the four corner approach we are refining our development model such as how we deliver the strength and conditioning aspect and combining that into our wider development model breaking down the four key aspects of football - technical, tactical, physical and psychological - into stages of development. This will help to create a clear picture of how our players development.
”A big part of the programme is how we go about developing the individual player within our team environment. We run weekly sessions that focus on individual development, this maybe technical skills or aspects specifically related to their position. These are in addition to team training sessions and work on a small number basis. Our aim must be to develop players for the future not today.
“I’d hope at the end of every month, players could look back and think ‘I’m a better player now than I was last month’. That is our challenge. We are more focused on the longerterm development of our players than winning our next fixture. It is important to be patient and trust the programme and process. For the first time, we have placed the under 17s in the under 19s league, and we’ve put our under 18s in the under 23s league. While we might not see immediate gains in terms of results or league position, we’re hoping in 12 to 18 months’ time that our players will be in a better position and it will accelerate bridging that gap to the first-team.”