From Surf Wiki (app.surf) — the open knowledge base

Crewe Alexandra F.C. Academy

The Crewe Alexandra F.C. Academy is the player development centre of English Football League club Crewe Alexandra F.C. Set up by manager Dario Gradi in the late 1980s, it achieved official status as an FA Youth Academy in the late 1990s. By concentrating on developing its own players the club remained profitable (a rare thing in lower-division football at the time) by selling them on after they have gained experience with Crewe. The Academy is known to stress technical excellence, which accords with the aim to have the first team play attractive, passing football. Academy graduates include full England internationals Rob Jones, Danny Murphy, Seth Johnson and Dean Ashton and Wales international David Vaughan, plus the club's current manager and previous manager.

History

During the late 1980s, Gradi and club chairman John Bowler got the local council to contribute to the costs of an all-weather pitch on waste ground to the south of Gresty Road. This formed the starting point for a youth coaching facility managed by Bill Prendergast, which by the early 1990s was coaching 120 youngsters every week. In 1995, Crewe leased a 20-acre site at Reaseheath, near Nantwich, planning a £750,000 training and player development facility largely funded by transfer sales: since 1983, Crewe had raised £3 million in fees while expending just £200,000. A year later, in 1996, Crewe received a lottery grant to develop a youth coaching facility in nearby Shavington (which eventually replaced the Gresty Road all-weather pitch, removed during redevelopment of Crewe's main stand in 1999-2000). By 2015, player sales had generated over £20 million which had largely been invested in modernising Gresty Road and in developing its Academy set-up. Crewe was the only club outside the top two divisions to have a Category Two academy club.

Players who passed through the ranks at Crewe include the England international players Geoff Thomas and David Platt and Welshman Robbie Savage, and Northern Ireland internationals Neil Lennon and Steve Jones (Platt was the most successful, totalling more than £20 million in transfers and captaining the England team). All these were youngsters signed from other clubs, but Gradi also had considerable success in nurturing Crewe's own trainees - notably full England internationals Rob Jones, Danny Murphy, Seth Johnson and Dean Ashton and Wales international David Vaughan.

Over 100 former youth players have made it into the first team at Crewe. In April 2013, in the team's final game of the season, manager Steve Davis fielded a team whose starting 11 were all Crewe Academy graduates. This feat was repeated five years later by Davis's successor David Artell (formerly operations manager at the Academy) on 5 May 2018.

In April 2022, Artell's immediate successor as Crewe manager, Alex Morris, became the first Academy graduate to manage the club's first team, with another graduate, Lee Bell, as assistant. Bell's predecessor as assistant manager, Kenny Lunt, was also an Academy graduate. In November 2022, after Morris stepped down for compassionate reasons to become assistant manager, Bell was appointed as Crewe manager, becoming the second Academy graduate to manage the club.

In 2020–2021, Crewe's academy was ranked 11th highest of 82 in England and Wales, and was the highest ranked Category Two Academy, in terms of producing players who had made league appearances. In 2021–2022, the academy climbed to 9th overall, ahead of Liverpool's academy.

Notable graduates

Players highlighted in bold have gained international caps for their countries. Players who were signed straight to the first team from elsewhere are not included (such as former internationals Neil Lennon, David Platt, Robbie Savage, and Geoff Thomas).

ENG Rio Adebisi
NGR Dele Adebola
WAL Calum Agius
ENG Callum Ainley
ENG Ben Amos
ENG Dean Ashton
ENG Ryan Austin
ENG James Bailey
ENG James Baillie
ENG Lee Bell
ENG Paul Bignot
ENG Lewis Billington
ENG Tom Booth
ENG Junior Brown
ENG Mark Carrington
ENG Max Clayton
ENG Chris Clements
ENG George Cooper
ENG Ryan Colclough
ENG Neil Critchley
ENG Owen Dale
ENG Brendon Daniels
ENG Harry Davis
ENG Maurice Doyle
ENG Adam Dugdale
ENG Chey Dunkley
ENG Paul Edwards
ENG Rob Edwards
WAL Connor Evans
ENG Gareth Evans
ENG Nick Farquharson
ENG Charlie Finney
ENG Oliver Finney
ENG Christopher Flynn
ENG Stephen Foster
ENG Ben Garratt
ENG Steve Garvey
ENG John Grant
ENG Regan Griffiths
ENG Michael Higdon
SVK Matúš Holíček
ENG Caspar Hughes
ENG Rob Hulse
ENG Michael Jackson
ENG Eddie Johnson
ENG Seth Johnson
ENG Travis Johnson
ENG Billy Jones
SCO James Jones
ENG Rob Jones
ENG Charlie Kirk
ENG Scott Leather
ENG A-Jay Leitch-Smith
WAL Tom Lowery
NIR Matthew Lund
ENG Josh Lundstram
ENG Kenny Lunt
ENG Joe Lynch
ENG Nicky Maynard
ENG Ben Marshall
ENG Chris McCready
ENG Shaun Miller
ENG Byron Moore
ENG Alex Morris
ENG Toby Mullarkey
ENG Danny Murphy
ENG Luke Murphy
ENG Perry Ng
NIR Liam Nolan
ENG George Nunn
NIR Michael O'Connor
ENG Luke Offord
IRE Connor O'Riordan
ENG Jason Oswell
ENG Harry Pickering
ENG Tom Pope
ENG Nick Powell
ENG George Ray
ENG Paul Rennie
ENG Lewis Reilly
ENG Mark Rivers
ENG Ben Rix
ENG Joe Robbins
ENG Gary Roberts
ENG Mark Roberts
ENG James Robinson
WAL Billy Sass-Davies
WAL Callum Saunders
ENG Danny Shelley
WAL Peter Smith
ENG Neil Sorvel
ENG Kevin Street
ENG Ritchie Sutton
ENG Joel Tabiner
ENG Stuart Tomlinson
ENG Matthew Tootle
ENG Daniel Trickett-Smith
ENG Ollie Turton
WAL David Vaughan
ENG Richard Walker
ENG Steve Walters
ENG Billy Waters
ENG Ashley Westwood
ENG Gareth Whalley
WAL Owain Fôn Williams
WAL Zac Williams
ENG Kyle Wilson
ENG Andy Woodward
ENG Nathan Woodthorpe
ENG David Wright
ENG Adam Yates

References

Sources

References

Hornbrook, p.36.
Hornbrook, p.56.
Hornbrook, p.94.
Hornbrook, p.118.
(9 February 2015). "The pioneering work of Crewe Alexandra's Academy". These Football Times.
(27 April 2013). "Crewe 2-0 Walsall". BBC Sport.
Scott, Ged. (24 April 2013). "Crewe Alexandra: Dario Gradi's academy dream set to come true". BBC Sport.
(5 May 2018). "Crewe Alexandra 2-1 Cheltenham Town". BBC Sport.
(11 April 2022). "David Artell: Crewe Alexandra part company with boss following relegation to League Two". BBC Sport.
(4 November 2022). "Alex Morris steps down as First-Team Manager". Crewe Alexandra.
(4 November 2022). "Alex Morris: Crewe Alexandra boss steps down to be assistant, Lee Bell becomes interim manager". BBC Sport.
(1 December 2022). "Lee Bell appointed First Team Manager".
(13 December 2021). "Crewe Alex: 'best' academy is punching above its weight against big clubs says Artell".
(20 October 2022). "Top 10 academy ranking is 'credit to hard-working staff'". CreweAlex.net.

Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

crewe-alexandra-f.c. football-academies-in-england lancashire-league-(football)

Want to explore this topic further?

Ask Mako anything about Crewe Alexandra F.C. Academy — get instant answers, deeper analysis, and related topics.

Research with Mako

Free with your Surf account

Content sourced from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

This content may have been generated or modified by AI. CloudSurf Software LLC is not responsible for the accuracy, completeness, or reliability of AI-generated content. Always verify important information from primary sources.

Report