‘My key role is getting players into the first-team’ says Town youth coach
MOST MANAGERS are judged on results, but for Gavin Atherton, FC Halifax Town’s youth team coach, the development of players is his primary yardstick.
Atherton is six months into the role, having previously been football development coach at Calderdale College, overseeing Town’s academy teams.
The Shaymen’s youth setup consists of 80 to 85 players and is divided into two parts, a Shadow squad managed respectively by Town winger Danny Williams and Aaron Beaumont, and an under 17s and under 18s youth team, overseen by Atherton, who reports to head of the youth setup Steve Nichol.
“I think the partnership we’ve got with the college is very good, very stable,” said Atherton, 33.
“It links and works really well, it’s ideal. I think we’re by far one of the strongest nonleague academy set-ups going.
“I don’t think many clubs or courses out there have access to a full-size sports hall, a fullsize strength and conditioning gym, classroom with 25 PCs where we do analysis, three or four changing rooms, a grass pitch, a 3G pitch.”
Atherton was a centre-back in his youth but an anterior cruciate ligament injury at Hyde United helped set him on the path to a coaching career.
“I was at college, studying a similar BTEC to what we offer, so I started my coaching badges through that, and when I got injured I was out for about a year-and-a-half,” he said.
“So I got into coaching. I was only 18, 19, did bits with a private coaching company, parttime at first and then full-time.
“I was there for about six years and did the basics of coaching, from reception kids up to year six in Primary Schools, doing after-school clubs, breakfast clubs.
“I got my UEFA B badge and through that met a coach who ran his own coaching company, and I ended up doing little bits for him.
“He saw something in me, he ended up working for Oldham and then I ended up getting a job there doing the under 12s.
“I got moved up to the under 15s, learned a lot, some great coaches, some great mentors, obviously Pete Wild was one of them and Milly (Chris Millington). I got to know them and learned off them.
“I developed a lot as a coach and after three or four years there, I moved to Wigan Athletic, taking their under 15s. I learned a hell of a lot there as well.
“Mike Jeffries said he was progressing from being football development officer at the college to become Halifax’s Lead Youth Team Coach and would I fancy coming to work alongside him?
“I thought it would be a great opportunity to go full-time, be around youth team lads day-today and be a good progression for me.”
Atherton says strong links to the Town first-team is a good selling point when trying to attract young players.
“Pete and Milly are great guys, they’ve been and done what I’m doing now,” he said.
“They’re massive on youth development.
“We looked at how we could link the youth team and the first team closer together, and thought would it be possible for the first-team to come and train at the college on a Monday so we could see the link a bit closer, the youth team players could be in and around the first team, the gaffer can meet the youth team players, if he needs any players during training we can throw one or two over.
“That side of it is great. Pete’s very open with that, I think it helps I’ve had a working relationship with him before because we’ve got that trust and bond between us.
“When we’ve done Zoom presentations to U16 players and parents in lockdown, Pete’s jumped on and talked about players coming up into the first team, and his aspirations for supporting youth development at this club.
“Nick Crane and Lucas Schofield have been on the bench. If the fit’s right and Pete likes the player and feels he can trust them, he’s going to give them an opportunity, it’s as simple as that.
“Throughout the season both first and second year scholars have trained on a regular basis with the first-team. It’s a great experience, it supports their development and shows to our players that opportunities are here with our first team.
Atherton sees his job first and foremost as a developer of players, and that success for him is seeing some follow in the footsteps of Jay Benn, a youth team product who is now part of Town’s first-team squad.
“Ultimately, my job is ‘can we get players into the first-team?’ Atherton said. “Winning is a big part of the game at this level, don’t get me wrong, so you can’t not have a winning mentality. That’s still a big part of it, so we instill that as much as possible.
“But ultimately, I’m a big advocate of developing players.
“I’ve brought in positionspecific sessions this year for the first and second years, so they work on it once a week, around all the basics of their game.
“The groups are separated into full-backs, wingers, centre backs, midfielders, strikers and goalkeepers - I’ve put a five-week programme together that works on a certain aspect of each position each week and they continually revisit it, the topics never change so they get loads of repetition!
“So you work through them and try to develop the skills for your position, we then try to bring it together in team training sessions.
“So if the gaffer and Milly say to me ‘Gav, we need a centre-back for example’ I can say ‘right, I’m going to give you this player here, this is what we’ve been doing, for example, he’s strong defensively in one v one situations and aerial battles, or in possession he can step in with the ball, break lines with a pass and he possess a varied range of passing.
“My key role is getting players into the first-team or as close to it as possible so the gaffer can say ‘I want him training with me’.
“If we can get them into the first-team and get them a pro contract like Jay Benn, then superb, brilliant.
“That’s my goal, to be able to develop players, even if they don’t get anything with our first-team, we can say ‘look how far you’ve come from your start point to where you are now’.
“It’s progress that important, every player’s journey is different and hopefully we can support players reaching the next step in their development.”