Jackson Murphy signs for Town's academy
10 year old Jackson Murphy first had a 6 week trial with the Academy in June 2015, after initially impressing, the coaches felt Jackson wasn’t quite ready for Academy Football and so he joined the Advanced Development Centre where staff could keep an eye on his progress and stay in the Shrewsbury Town Player Pathway.Jackson took onboard the coaches advice and feed back and went away and worked on his game and weaknesses. He soon flourished at the ADC, impressing in training sessions and in the games programme, including games against the academy, impressing the staff with his ability to pick out a pass and control games from midfield.
Jackson soon got another chance to go up to the Academy and train with them for a further 6 weeks where staff soon offered him a place in the squad for the 2016/2017 season.
This is a great example of the Player Pathway and one we look to emulate more often.
We have introduced a Shadow Squad this year to take the best players from the Advanced Development Centre’s and new talented players that come in and aren’t quite there yet for Academy Football. The Shadow Squad will sit underneath the Academy and will work in conjunction with their delivery programme and be constantly monitored by their staff with the objective of more players being assessed in a high skilled environment.
This is just one step we have taken to ensure more of Shropshire’s young talent is being given the chance to thrive in a professional and high skilled environment.
New Academy manager Andy Jones says “As a club its important that we recruit the best local talent in Shropshire and this player pathway will enable us to do so. The last few seasons have shown how youth has been represented in the first team and how important it is to the club to nurture local talent. We feel that being at Shrewsbury Town gives players a great opportunity to become a professional footballer and as past players have shown, can potentially lead to furthering their professional career at a higher level.”
To recruit local talented young players for the Academy and the Shadow Squads, Shrewsbury Town will host a recruitment day on Thursday 18th August at Shrewsbury College, London Road, SY2 6PR.
The times will be for next seasons age groups;
- U7’s/U8’s- 9.30am-11am
- U9’s/U10’s- 11.30am-1pm
- U11’s/U12’s- 1.30pm-3pm
To register, please email community@shrewsburytown.co.uk and provide players name, DOB, current club, and playing position.
Your place will then be confirmed by email.
Jackson is pictured with Lead Foundation Phase Coach, Ben King.