CARDIFF CITY UNVEIL MAJOR NEW ACADEMY PLAN:
CARDIFF City have submitted their planning application to construct a new, state-of-the-art sports complex at Llanrumney Fields.
It is the latest in a series of strides being taken by the Bluebirds hierarchy to make the club’s academy a real force in this corner of the world.
The club’s top brass, from owner Vincent Tan right down to academy bosses, have worked hard over the last 12 months to reinvigorate the Bluebirds’ ailing academy and this is just the latest step.
Here, we take a look at what this new site includes, what the men at the top think and the other recent developments within the academy which will hopefully serve to better the production line in years to come...
The Llanrumney Sports Complex
Cardiff City have teamed up with Cardiff council and Cardiff university to drum up the idea for a top-end sports site to serve not only the Bluebirds, but local Llanrumney football and rugby clubs as well as the university’s sports teams.
The 16-acre complex, which will become Cardiff City academy’s permanent new home, will include a tiertwo 3G football facility, a floodlit 3G rugby pitch, another dual floodlit football and rugby pitch (with pitch markings for both sports) with further plans to implement a hockey pitch.
There will also be learning facilities included in the construction, with the plan to take over the old Dr Who building and create a learning environment with classrooms for the youngsters who attend college.
The two-storey building will include offices, a lecture theatre, canteen, changing rooms and a gym. The building will also house an indoor academy-standard 3G training pitch, in addition to five full size grass pitches, a 3G tier-two standard pitch and a goalkeeper-specific training area.
The community facilities will occupy where the old Llanrumney High School playing fields are and will include a new building with changing facilities for the Llanrumney-based sports teams.
Subject to final approvals, it’s hoped the work on the site will commence in late 2020 with the all-weather pitches expected to be available for use by the end of 2021.
All four existing House of Sport sites will continue to run alongside the new Llanrumney development.
Vincent Tan’s vision
It is no secret that Neil Harris was appointed with a view to restructuring the club from top to bottom, a similar job to the one he undertook when he stepped up to first-team boss at Millwall.
He speaks passionately about the development of young players and that seems to be a notion shared right at the top. While it might seem an unattainable goal, Harris said the aim is to have XI academy products occupying the first team and that is a directive passed down from the top, with Vincent Tan wanting his Cardiff City players to have greater inclusion in Wales squads moving forward.
“It’s early days but it’s a really exciting one,” Harris said of the project. “Vincent’s thought process for the future, Ken [Choo], Mehmet [Dalman], the board, thinking about the longer term of the club and the youth.
“We want success today, of course we do, but the thought process of giving young players a chance, coming into the first team.
“Ultimately, the plan is to have 11 Cardiff City kids in the first team one day. It’s not easy but that’s what the club wants to see after a period of time.”
There was talk of potentially upgrading Cardiff City’s academy to category one status, a move which would really capitalise on Swansea City’s being downgraded, but that has been put on the backburner amid the coronavirus pandemic, with funds needed elsewhere across the club.
But this is certainly viewed as a really positive investment from the Bluebirds and it is something which will serve to benefit the wider community and is something Vincent Tan is very conscious of.
Cardiff City CEO Ken Choo revealed that Tan’s vision is not only to further enhance the club’s academy, but to enable Cardiff and its communities to
have access to top-level sports facilities.
“I’m thrilled that this collaborative development will help drive forward further Tan Sri Vincent Tan’s vision of sports delivery for all in the City of Cardiff and its surrounding areas,” Choo said.
“The Llanrumney project is particularly exciting, with it also reestablishing a base for Cardiff City Football Club within the city limits itself.
“This state-of-the-art complex will provide a sustainable base for our academy for years to come, helping us ensure quality and consistency in our development of young players into professional footballers.”
Other exciting academy developments
We are really beginning to see foundations being laid now for what will hopefully be a fruitful period for Cardiff City’s academy moving forward.
We have seen the appointment of David Hughes as academy head of coaching in recent weeks and that is a real coup given the stellar work he has overseen pertaining to player development at the vaunted Southampton academy in his last post.
But there are other, tangible changes Cardiff City are implementing on a regular basis now as they appear to be investing far more time in their stars of tomorrow.
Neil Harris is hellbent on ensuring the crop of youngsters coming through, some of which the club are really excited about, do not slip through the net.
The club believe there is a crop of players between the ages of 15 and 17 who can really make that step up to first-team football in years to come.
In fact, Cardiff pulled one very highly-rated 16-year-old out of school last Friday to train with the first team and the manager was buoyed by the results after having all of his under-23s and many of his under-18s training with the senior squad.
“Friday was one of the first times we had all the under-23s, under-18s, some younger as well, training with us,” he said.
“It was fantastic. It was so good to see. We are a football club that wants to move forward by promoting young players.
“We have got to be patient, as I keep saying, but we’ve got some very talented 15, 16 and 17-yearolds that, as soon as they are good enough, I don’t care how old they are, they are in the [first-team] group.
“We have had lads out of school, training with the first team. That’s where we are at, that’s because we believe in good young players coming through.”
Another appointment which has slipped under the radar somewhat is the acquisition of Kevin Beadell, who has been appointed the new head of emerging talent at Cardiff City.
Beadell was the former Arsenal academy lead scout but was let go after Edu took the role of technical director a year ago.
A Cardiff academy insider, though, has claimed that the introduction of Beadell could be a ‘game changer’ and is just as exciting as the appointment of Hughes, with the duo having worked in top category one setups in their most recent posts.