In a webinar hosted by Premier Sports Network (PSN), experts from professional soccer and rugby club academies shared with attendees across the globe how they utilize technology to enhance communication between staff, players, and parents, safeguard athlete wellbeing, manage player expectations, and more. The panel of experts includes:

• Neil Hunter – Academy Operations Manager, Norwich City F.C
• Paul Metheringham – Academy Head of Operations, Bristol City F.C.
• Ryan Brooks – Sr. Manager, Academy Business Operations, New York Red Bull
• Abby Carrington – Head of Player Care, Swansea F.C.
• Haydn Roberts – Former Head of Player Care & Support, Manchester City F.C.
• Dave Wilks – Academy Manager, Leicester Tigers
• Patrick O’Grady – Academy Manager, London Irish

Safeguarding Academy Athletes 

One of the biggest priorities for any academy is safeguarding the physical and emotional wellbeing of young athletes. A key part of this is ensuring messages between coaches, staff, and players are monitored, communications cant be altered or deleted, and parents are kept in the loop.

In the past, we used different messaging services, but now weve brought it all in-house with Teamworks. When we message a player, their parents receive it at the same time. It also gives us a history of communication between staff and players. We store contact details and medical information, keep it secure, and control what levels of information people are able to see and receive. Using one platform has been really useful for us.
– Neil Hunter, Academy Operations Manager at Norwich City F.C. 

Improving Communication & Information Flow

When clubs turn to technology to become more effective and efficient, they sometimes pursue a scattershot approach that involves individual teams using separate systems. This creates a headache for users and administrators alike. At larger academies that serve multiple age groups, its challenging to manage all the moving parts and keep stakeholders updated. Notifying players, coaches, and staff about scheduling changes and other logistics often requires using multiple platforms, and some people might still miss important messages. But when academies and their first and second teams use a single platform, its easier for everyone to get on the same page.

Weve had Teamworks in the academy for almost four years right now. Then it moved into the second and first teams. We have much more free-flowing information that appropriate people can access, so they can do their jobs better. In Teamworks, there are team chats for different subjects, with channels for things like player movement or issues in school.
– Ryan Brooks, Senior Manager of Academy Business Operations at New York Red Bull

So it’s getting out that information really quickly and really efficiently. A one-stop shop to be able to have the communication out to players and parents really quickly and prevent any further issues.
– Paul Metheringham, Academy Head of Operations at Bristol City F.C.

Managing Expectations

At any elite club, the percentage of players who make it through preseason trials and are selected for an academy squad is going to be low. This means staff must be able to effectively communicate selection decisions to players and parents in a swift, repeatable, and clear way. Using the right communication tool can help achieve this, as well as meeting the current generations expectation of having information at their fingertips.

One of the roles that an academy head has is communicating bad news. If you’ve got your communication joined up, you’re managing expectations when its time to let that news out and its not a game of he said, she said because you’ve got a body of evidence. This isn’t subjective, so people can then understand the process.
– Haydn Roberts, former Head of Player Care & Support at Manchester City F.C.

To learn more about the advantages Teamworks can provide to your academy and the players, parents, and coaches you serve, contact us today.

Full Transcript: How to Run a Successful Elite Academy & Overcoming the Challenges

Adam Leventhal  00:04

Hi there, everyone and welcome to this Premier Sports Network presentation entitled “How to Run a Successful Elite Academy and Overcoming the Challenges.”  This one is made possible by PSN trusted partner for the last four years. The Operating System for Sports. You all know them. It is Teamworks, and welcome to everyone watching around the globe, wherever you are Australia, Argentina, the US, the UK, in Europe, as well. Welcome onboard. It’s great to have you with us. And I know there’s plenty of people watching in various locations. So it’s it’s great to have your attention for around about the next 40 minutes or so. My name is Adam Leventhal, broadcaster and journalist for The Athletic in the UK and the US. And I’ve worked with PSN for many years, love in person events and online events like this one, as well. Let’s get a quick introduction from our panel. And I’m going to pick you at random just to introduce yourself and give a little bit of background as to your role. Let’s start with with you, Hayden.

Hi, good to see you again. Adam. My name is Hayden Roberts. I was head of player care at Manchester City for nine years from 2008 onwards. Since then, I’ve stayed within the sports industry and currently the European Sales Director for Teamworks.

Brilliant Hayden, thank you very much. Paul, let’s head to you now.

Hi, everyone. My name is Paul Metheringham, interim head of Academy operations. I’ve been at Bristol City F.C. for just over a year, previous experience at Lincoln City and Liverpool.

Brilliant. Thank you very much, Paul. Abby, over to you.

Abby Carrington  01:56

Thanks, Adam. Yeah, my name is Abby Carrington. I am currently the head of player care at Swansea City. And I’ve spent four years working in player care. Previous clubs were Nottingham Forest.

Brilliant. Abby, thank you very much to Dave.

Dave Wilks  02:11

Hi, everyone. I’m Dave Wilks. I’m head of Academy at Leicester Tigers. Been fortunate enough to be here for is my seventh just finished my seventh season so great. And going strong as well, which is good.

Let’s head now to Patrick.

Patrick O’Grady  02:29

Afternoon, Adam. Very similar to Dave, actually academic manager at London Irish Rugby Club, and just completing my eighth season in the royal now.

Adam Leventhal  02:40

Thank you very much. And let’s head stateside, Ryan.

Ryan Brooks  02:44

Thanks, Adam. So Ryan Brooks, Senior Manager Academy Business Operations, been with New York Red Bulls for the past four years. And before that, Minnesota United in Chicago Fire.

Adam Leventhal  02:56

Brilliant. Thank you very much. And finally, last but not least, Neal Hunter.

Neil Hunter  03:05

Hi, I’m the head of operations at Norwich City. In contrast to Dave and Patrick, I’ve only been here this my end of my first season previously teaching and in the travel industry before that.

Adam Leventhal  03:21

Brilliant. Thank you very much. So that is your panel on this presentation. And just to let you know, we are going to be having a few questions that have been sent in from the partners of Premier Sports Network a little bit later on. So we’ll get to those. But let’s start off we mentioned the the title of this presentation how to run a successful elite Academy and overcoming the challenges we’ll come on to the challenges but I wanted to start off with with how to run a successful elite Academy. I wanted to start with you. Hayden, obviously, you were previously at Manchester City. And I’ll ask the same question to to all of our panel. What are the overarching principles? How do you get to the point where you feel Yes, this is going well, this is this is how I want it to run?

Haydn Roberts  04:11

That’s a it’s a great question. And in the role that I served in as head of player care, my my role predominantly was the first team and then the emerging 20 ones that were transition from the Academy. So in order for the Academy to be a slick operation, that it was it was all about communication, and ensuring the when and the silos bridging those silos. So the transition the pathway planning, whatever we’d call it was smooth and consistent. Because effectively you’re going from one school to a much bigger school, and you didn’t want to be that fish out of water. But also you wanted to ensure that the needs not the wants, but the needs of the players and the stakeholders for those players were met. So I think the academy were exemplary in being able to communicate that to me, and therefore Showing that Africa even wants to players had graduated from the academy. So for me, the one word I would use is communication and transparency to there and

Adam Leventhal  05:11

that’s all right. That’s good. They’re both good ones. Okay, let’s let’s head off to you now because, you know, into a different sport. But obviously, there’s a lot of shared principles, presumably in how to run an academy, I

Dave Wilks  05:23

think I think Hades nailed it. Yeah. No, I think, definitely that for me, probably a real overriding purpose. So everybody, every staff member, every parent has as real alignment on the purpose of what the academy is there for. And with that, making sure that everyone everyone in that system is cared for so that it can be success, even even if people don’t make it right to the senior team. They are successful in Nigeria that successful for being part of the system being part of the academy, and that we follow up on what we were promised that we can’t we we want everybody to achieve right to the top of their game, but actually, we success is what they learned when they were this and make and be really honest and transparent about that. That’s kind of what I think we’ve done very well. So let Lester the last few years.

Adam Leventhal  06:23

Let’s switch to London Irish stay on the stay on the rugby side of things. Patrick, from from your point of view, do you share those those views that we’ve already had there?

Patrick O’Grady  06:32

Yeah, very much in line with that. We actually had a bit of a review about 12 months ago, and based everything around the journey to the stadium. And that could be in any any capacity. Obviously, there’s, you know, two or three boys that you might sign each year. But I think it goes far beyond that, as everyone was saying here, you can develop lifelong lovers of the game, future support as the club, you want the parents to actually have enjoyed the process of their, their children haven’t been in our pathway and had a fantastic experience. And they go on to come to our games in the future. If you’ve developed an interest in physiotherapy, strength, conditioning, nutrition, through your years in the academy, high performance, and then boys go on to study that in the future and come back at work at the club in some capacity. There’s, there’s so much that encompasses that. And I’m also very, very fortunate that we’ve had a consistent group of staff over a number of years, which has allowed the programme to build and evolve. And I think that is also one of the keys to our success, but very much encompassing what the two guys have said earlier. Abby, over to you, what are the keys to your, your success, I

Abby Carrington  07:38

think I’d probably go with direction, I think it has to come from a club wide perspective, obviously, as an academy, we sit under the club as an umbrella. So direction is key, we need to know where we’re going. And that can then we can put things in place on how we get there. So having that almost true north, everyone, every stakeholder knows that that’s our goal overarching, and that’s why we’re making those decisions to get there.

Adam Leventhal  08:03

Oh, let’s head over to you. I mean, presumably, that’s it’s a similar story for you. But it’s difficult to achieve that sort of situation where everyone is heading in the in the same direction. That’s one of the sort of the ultimate challenges of any sport team or franchise, isn’t it?

Paul Metheringham  08:20

Yes, definitely getting everyone on the same page in you know, working together, it’s a real challenge. I think the guys have made some really good points so far, for most of our point of view, probably be ensuring that the best opportunities were available to the player. And most importantly, probably an enjoyable experience for them. So supporting them holistically, and their development and sort of their personal growth of the of the players, but also probably ensuring it was a safe environment for all players and staff at that point. So looking on that side as well.

Adam Leventhal  08:56

Yeah, no, that’s cool. And we’ll get we’ll dig more into the, you know, obviously the into the safeguarding issues, especially important within academies in a little bit more detail later on. Let’s head on to Ryan now, in the States, the overarching principles.

Ryan Brooks  09:16

Yeah, it’s, you know, when I heard the question, it’s a successful Academy. It’s evolving, and, and, you know, we have a saying at the club, it’s like, 1% better every day. And so, we’re not even thinking we’re successful. We’re not even thinking of how, how we’re continuing to build. And we actually, I think someone mentioned it before there was an audit at the club to see, you know, how are things getting done right now, but then how do we want to drive in the future and really looking at some of the key initiatives that will allow to drive that and to really look introspectively into in terms of a third party to say this is this is things you need to improve on? You know, for me, it’s it’s connecting dots, it’s putting subject matter experts and and helping and supporting those those people. And I think someone mentioned And earlier with the silos of, you know, Academy, second team first team and being able to smooth out the transition as much as possible. You know, it’s, like I mentioned, it’s a, it’s a journey, and you’re continuing to improve upon the processes each each day. And so yeah, it’s a it’s an interesting journey, as I’m sure everybody on this panel can can attest to.

Adam Leventhal  10:22

Neil, Neil, now, how is it sort of at Norwich City? I mean, obviously, a lot of it is dictated by maybe where the club is at be at Premier League or be at the championship at the moment. How much do you have to sort of just have laser focus on the job that you have at hand and almost ignore the the external noise about oh, you know, is the club heading in the right direction and all that sort of stuff,

Neil Hunter  10:48

I think it goes back to what Abby was talking about in terms of direction is that the academy is going to have its own direction that works under the whole club strategy, as well as then what the first team will look into looking to achieve, I think, I’d echo a number of the things that have already been said, by by everyone. And the one thing that we always try and get across is that we want to create an environment that people want to be there. So that’s all the stakeholders of the players, obviously, the staff, the parents, but every action that everyone is wanting to return every day, has that enthusiasm, energy, to achieve whatever goals that they set themselves. And we will try and give that opportunity and set them up on that, on that journey. And I may

Adam Leventhal  11:38

come into the second part of it now straight away with with you, Neil, actually, in terms of the challenges that are faced by by clubs and organisations, you know, across the board in trying to achieve the goal of running a successful Academy. Maybe let’s start off with just the general challenges that that you face. What what is, what is it that that is sort of top of mind when you think right, the biggest challenge for us is,

Neil Hunter  12:06

I think it’s making sure that everyone is working in that same direction and working to a common goal. And, you know, hadn’t mentioned before about the communication aspect. That’s where the team works as a platform has really helped us be able to get everybody working to one platform. Whereas obviously, historically, there’s been many different platforms that have been used by different departments. And it makes that transition, it makes that the communication difficult. We obviously, as a club, geographically, are challenged. So we have to reach further afield than perhaps a lot of other clubs that we compete against. So it’s making sure that our communication with everything of logistics that obviously I look after, off the field, but then obviously, also a regular feedback from all the coaching staff performance stuff, to make sure that parents and players know what’s obviously expected of them, but also then are able to keep wanting to improve and look into work to improve every day.

Haydn Roberts 13:23

I think that’s a great point, the Aleppo if I may jump in, Adam, and that one of the artists roles that, you know, heads of Academy have is delivering bad news, you know, almost spoiling the dream. But as Patrick said earlier on, you know, if you can create their own journey to the club, and ensure that that communication is not only joined up, but you’re managing expectations, so you haven’t got a almost a game of He Said, She Said, when it comes to letting the bad news out, and you everyone’s been consistent, because you’ve got a body of evidence, which isn’t subjective, yet, so people can then understand the process. And that way, you’ve got half a chance of the player, the players family, leaving the building without resentment, and talking Well, of their journey there and seeing that being grateful for such a platform. And as I said, like Patrick said earlier, that then that doesn’t mean that the doors are closed in the club, there are new pathways that doesn’t have to be the original one you set out to to achieve chief

Ryan Brooks  14:24

Hayden kind of fun able to jump in. I think that’s a great point. It’s it’s, it’s to delivering bad news, but and then it’s, it’s getting ahead of it, you know, it’s getting ahead of the bad news. And we’ve all been in these positions for a number of years so we can understand the patterns and we can understand the pitfalls. And when you have people that are, you know, this isn’t a single silo that you work there’s it’s interrelated with a lot of different members of not just the academy, but the broader club, and like, asking the right questions and seeing the patterns and kind of visualising what can happen And in the future based on a decision, or if they’re seeking approval for, you know, can I get more money for this product? Or can I get this? Can I get another part time person and thinking about, well, what are the negative consequences or the unintended consequences of those things? And looking at the positives, and maybe the positives outweigh the neg the unintended consequences in evaluating those things. I think that’s really the real essence of specifically what I do. And I can imagine the other people on this call as well.

Adam Leventhal  15:30

Would anyone else like to come in on on on that point, which obviously branched out a little bit more, but in terms of, of delivering sometimes very difficult news? Yeah, I think

Patrick O’Grady  15:43

whatever on set is really, right. And I think you have to be really honest with the player and the key stakeholders. Yeah, and making sure that parents are school coaches, etc, in the room as well for those discussions, that whilst you want to create a really positive environment to ensure that the athlete is confident when they’re training, when they’re playing, I think you have to be honest around, okay, this is where you’re at, these are your strengths. But this is probably the disparity between you and someone, we would consider signing in your position in 1218 months time, however, we’ll support you working on these areas of the game. But just as long as you’re honest, so that it shouldn’t really be a shock to anyone come the end of that season. So for us at the end of the underwriting programme, if we sit down deliver that news that you know that we’re not taking you on board full time, for us, it shouldn’t ever be a shot, those conversations should manage over a period of time and those honest, transparent work ones be discussed.

Haydn Roberts 16:36

That joke out there no evidence of that communication that you had eight months ago, 18 months ago, you know, just following up. So you know, in that space of what you said that back then, and she said that, and then you know, that wasn’t communicated to me, and then it starts bubbling over?

Patrick O’Grady  16:51

Yeah, that’s why we will always have the parents in the room, and then probably one of the school coaches, either in the room or on the zoom. So there’s alignment from from the various stakeholders.

Adam Leventhal  17:01

I mean, in terms of I just wanted to ask you, Hayden on on, you know, what teamworks offers, for example, in terms of sort of record keeping and a pathway within an academy and on the communication side of things to be able to check back and to be able to make sure that you can refer back to well, this is the discussion that we had had, does that exist? Is that part of the the offering? Almost?

Haydn Roberts 17:25

Yeah, I mean, we can even boil it down to something simpler than that Adam, show my age. Now, it was probably 10 or 12 years ago, when there was lots of great information in different spaces, you know, between the academy between the first team, so there’s loads of things going on, and there’s loads of information, and no one knew where it was, and there was, you know, we need this find a better process and, and at the time that the guys in performance analysis, and the Academy came up with a process, which was almost the beginning of this journey, which was having one platform to build everything. And then we realised, you know, we needed to have more expertise in that space. So that’s one of the big reasons I joined team works, because there’s something that I was asking for such a long time ago. And you can see how it solves those problems of evidence of communication, bridges of silos, communication between not just the academy and first team, but between different coaches from the Academy between the stadium, the Academy, the parents, the schools, the education programme, I think, really, then that gives you that one body of evidence, we talked about all being in one place to say, right, this has been your 567 year journey. And this is where it all sits. And here’s the proof of that as one of the many things. And it’s a lot. It’s simple to do if I can do it, it’s really straightforward.

Adam Leventhal  18:52

Abby, I wanted to come on to you and we can maybe move the conversation on to different areas, what would you say is that the biggest challenge that that you face?

Abby Carrington  19:02

I think in both roles in player care, obviously very similar, but that very same challenges of number one for me would probably be time. So Player care obviously came around a few years ago when was implemented into your academy programme. But I don’t think anyone factored in the time that it takes to actually deliver on player care. So you’re already trying to put things into a jam packed schedule. And now you’ve got to find time to do an extra department worth of stuff. So time is incredibly difficult to factor into player care.

Patrick O’Grady  19:41

How do you manage that?

Abby Carrington  19:43

Build relationships ensure that we’re showing the value of what player care can offer so that you get buy in from staff and players to go yeah, this is actually really worthwhile. Implementing and making space for in our programme Deva

Adam Leventhal  20:00

I wanted to come to you just just the general overarching question of the biggest challenges that that you face.

Dave Wilks  20:08

Like, it’s interesting to call it player care. And I’ll be talking about it as a as a thing, I think we probably integrate it into a lot of what we do and how we message and how we deliver things rather be a standalone thing. And it is the safeguarding and welfare and lots of come into that. But that’s something that I think we would cover quite quite inherently. So we’re we time we describe our environment is very, very high challenge, but very high care. So make kind of no no excuses about the demands, we’re going to ask of players and parents but but make sure that they’re really well cared for. Or hear your point around time. Time for me is also resource and there’s a constant balance for for us, and I think a lot of sports around how much resource you can put into how many players and and obviously, that comes really down to kind of really good player development and really good player care, takes resolves takes time. So we’re constantly having to spoon agree how many players we can look, after how much input we can, we can give them how much care we can give them how much you know how much development time we can give them. And unfortunately, we’re like I said before, we’re kind of in the industry of for the business of disappointing people at times, and you can’t give as many people as much opportunity as you’d like. That’s probably the one one thing that over the last couple years we’ve really had to balance out is how much resource you can put into each player. Knowing that you have to put you have to put a lot of time and investment into the meat because you have to care for them.

Adam Leventhal  21:53

And, Paul, I wanted to come to you as as well. I mean, obviously, you know that what David said there in terms of caring for the people that are part of the academy is obviously essential. How do you do that? And how do you make sure that it is a, you know, a seamless, prosperous environment at all times?

Paul Metheringham  22:14

I think from what Dave sort of said there, the actual caring for the player is paramount in terms of what everyone does within the club. So yeah, you’ve got a really good group of staff, who are very, very caring. So I think it’s talking and keeping communication in the multi discipline sort of environment. So each member of each discipline will contribute to different player reviews, have constant communication, be continually updated on players and their situations sort of in art, sorry, on and off the pitch. So that kind of gives us an a sort of a bit of a wraparound care to each player at that point.

Adam Leventhal  22:58

Neil, I wanted to come come back to you. Now, if I may. And it sort of extends upon that the challenges that that you face? Are there any, you don’t have to name names, obviously. But just in terms of case studies of situations where you thought, right, I’m facing this challenge, but I don’t know that the processes that we have in place, have made sure that we’ve dealt with that, whether it’s whether it was a good thing or a bad thing. We’ve dealt with it in the right way. And you can you can step away from it and go good, we can roll that out any other time that we have this sort of situation arise again.

Neil Hunter  23:33

Yeah, as Paul says, As an MDT multidisciplinary approach. We have weekly meetings, where we talk through each and every single player, and we would talk about them in each area, whether it be football, whether it be education, whether it be from a player care, welfare, safeguarding point of view, we would go through and really go into detail about that player. And I think it’s really important to spend that time to make sure that we’re we’re giving them the best opportunity and best care we can. And we’ve had many situations with individual players where it links the different departments together where a situation might have been described to a physio by a player by one of the players friends, however, the information might come in, that’s fed back to the group. And therefore the group can then go and deal with who’s best place to take the next action to take the next step in order to help that player and then that is regularly updated each week. So that’s really worked for us in t