Macc academy to be one of best in the business
Club has ‘unbelievable, unrivalled facilities’ for young footballers to develop their game
MACCLESFIELD FC football academy manager Paul McGuire is urging parents of junior footballers to try out the club’s first-rate facilities before deciding on a destination for their youngsters’ foundation in the game.
Alongside his work with the academy, McGuire is also performance phase manager and looks after the B-Tech programme at the club, as well as looking after some of the Silkmen’s international partnerships.
So few people are better placed to comment on the facilities available to young footballers looking for the best venue to hone their talent.
And McGuire believes that, while many clubs offer academies of some description, few can rival the new-look Macc.
“I’d say to parents look, invest in the club like we’re trying to invest in you, come down, take part, experience the facilities,” he said.
“Everyone delivers football academies, there are good coaches everywhere - but what we have is unbelievable, unrivalled facilities with the brand new sports bar, the new gym, the classrooms that will come into play – this is going to be one of the best places around to turn up and participate.”
And, while Covid restrictions have put a halt to onfield matters at all but elite level, there is still a lot of activity going on at the club right now.
“We know that Covid is hampering a few things but the club is very much up and running now working from home, online, Zoom calls, emails - we’re doing a lot and everything is going great in terms of marketing the juniuor academy.
“We have over 200 people now coming down to the junior academy once it starts up.
“The B-Tech programme is going strong as we head into our third year of that and we’re looking at quite a sizeable, quality intake coming in for that, So it’s all systems go even though we’re restricted by Covid.
“The Leasing.com under 16s tournament will be a great thing to see here – it’s a good age group, the older end of our playing academy and players who are filtering into the B-Tech, it’s a good chance for them to show us their ability at the ground and come here and win the first trophy on the new pitch - it will be fantastic to see that cup competition, hopefully at the start of April.
“Some of the underpinning nature of what Rob (Smethurst) wanted at the club was a vibrant football club used day in and day out with a lot of young people progressing and that’s exactly what we’re going to have.
“The B-Tech now will take place at the stadium as well as Macclesfield College, so I think that’s a really unique blend, for B-Tech students to train at a stadium is fantastic and then they will be able to do work-based learning and different things with the junior acadamy and on matchdays. It’s going to be a really vibrant place and will be very exciting to watch it all unfold over the next few years.”