Academy achieve Category Three status
Shrewsbury Town’s Academy have been awarded Category Three status after their recent audit.
Auditors enjoyed a five day visit at the club where they looked at the procedures and processes the Academy have in place to bring young players through the system.
Academy Manager, Eric Ramsay, was delighted by the result and believes it’s all down to hard work.
“It’s probably surpassed our expectations in that we’ve been granted the full three year category three licence with no visits, no re-audits, and that’s something that puts us right at the top end of category three’s in the country”, said Ramsay.
“I think it’s a reflection of the hard work of an awful lot of people and the support of the club’s hierarchy, so it was as good a result as we could possibly have expected.
“The auditors spend nearly five days with you and interview everyone from nine and ten-year-old players to the Chief Executive and the Manager, so everyone was involved in the audit process and no stone was left unturned by the auditors.
“In that sense it was really good because it allowed us to showcase ourselves in the best light and we had a really good week, and the feedback was really impressive.”
Town’s Academy were actually close to achieving Category Two status this time and Eric has high hopes for the future.
“Category Three clubs are in the main the size of Shrewsbury, if not slightly bigger, so for us to be at the top of that bracket is really impressive and it does show that we are moving in the right direction”, said Ramsay.
“I want to do everything we can possibly do in order to get players into the first-team, that’s the first thing on my agenda, but to get a really strong report at Category Three is a reflection of the fact that the pathway we’ve created is one of the better ones at our level and hopefully that in itself produces players somewhere down the line.
“I’d love to take us onto the next level and have conversations with the club about moving onto Category Two, and developing infrastructure, and building out staffing model, and all the while ensuring that is geared towards getting players ready for the first-team and not losing sight of that.”