Academy sponsorship manager Simon Milton says everyone at Playford Road was “bitterly disappointed” not to be awarded category one status earlier this week but are moving forward and getting on with the business of bringing through young players.
"After putting all the work in, what we thought we needed to do to the facilities, and taking on additional staff you can imagine what it was like up there yesterday and today, although we move on quite quickly in football,” said the former midfielder.
"Everyone was bitterly disappointed, particularly when you look at the margins we’re talking about, 0.3 per cent off the required 75 per cent. And Derby, who got 78 per cent, got through.
"The place was a bit dead yesterday, you realise that after everything that we’ve done that we haven’t quite made it.
"But the positive news from [owner] Marcus [Evans] and [academy director] Bryan [Klug] is that we are going to run an unbelievably successful category two academy with the staffing and facilities of a category one academy. It was that close.
"It’s just that we’re not going to play the games against the likes of Chelsea, Arsenal and Spurs that we want to play and unfortunately we don’t get the grant that category one brings with it.”
As a result, with the academy effectively operating at category one level despite failing to pass the audit, Evans will have to cover the additional cost.
"Make no mistake about it, the owner is still funding the academy,” Milton continued. "When you go category one your budget goes up to £2.5 million a year, of which around £750,000 is a Premier League grant.
"I was trying, within the next five years, to raise £500,000 a year through academy sponsorship. Last season we went from about £100,000 to £230,000.
"But even when we get to my half a million and with the £750,000 grant, the owner’s still got to put in the other £1.25 million.
"The grant at category two is £480,000, so he’s got to put in more. Any financial shortfall in the total budget of the academy will come directly from the owner.
"Sometimes you read things which say we’re going for category one and we’re asking the fans to pay for it, but that’s just ridiculous.”
He says the focus has already moved towards attaining category one next year: "What Bryan’s saying is that there’s another audit, we can keep applying and as close as we were we could be sitting here in a year’s time with a category one academy and a place in the Premier League.
"A year in football is absolutely massive. As hard as it is, I think the Championship will be another tough league, but you just never know.”
He added: "Bryan will know exactly what points we got for every single area. There’s productivity, there’s players that have come through, facilities, coaching, education. There are a million and one things that they go through. It’s a very complex system.”
The audit was carried out by independent Belgian company DoublePass over several days in April. Town were subsequently given time to react to the audit’s findings and comment on anything with which they disagreed, with the auditors then re-evaluating before Town were given the final verdict on Thursday morning. The Blues have no plans for an appeal.
"I think over the last few weeks we were aware we were short of points and have been having these discussions," Milton said.
While a lack of recent players progressing into the first team hit Town's mark and was a significant factor in failing to pass the audit, Milton believes the Blues are entering what will be a productive period: "Away from the financials of the academy and the commercial side of the academy, I think we are getting to an era where in the next few years we’ll be producing some really, really good players.
"Now is a good time for us. We’ve a lot of really good age groups. The important bit is still developing players.
"If you took a 13-year-old boy and brought him into the academy this year and we were in category two or category one the actual day to day working with that boy is absolutely no different.
"The facilities are still there, the coaches are still there, the quality is still there. What he won’t do at the weekend is play Tottenham, Arsenal and Chelsea.
"The improvements are already there, they’ve been made and everybody’s got their qualifications. From that aspect it doesn’t make a difference, but we want to play the top teams at the top training grounds.
"We want to be able to protect our players [from being poached] and we want to get the category one grant.
"It hits us with recruitment as well but you’ve just got to get on with it and show them examples of players breaking into the first team - Matt Clarke and Teddy Bishop started against West Ham the other day.”
The 50-year-old believes that those who have supported the Academy Association since it was launched last summer, amongst them TWTD, will continue to do so: "I’m sure you didn’t put your money into the academy on basis that we’d got to get category one or you’re not going to bother any more.
"The people who are putting their money in are doing so because they can see exactly where their £500, their £1,000 or their £5 a month is going.
"From my point of view it’s very much business as usual. In some ways we want to raise even more money.
"We’re trying to get to £500,000 which is unbelievable, there’s not another club in the country that would raise over £200,000 for their academy in a season. Not a chance.”
He added: "What we’re trying to do is ask people to support the academy and whether we’re category one or two my clients are still going to be sitting in the directors’ box, they’re still going to be getting all the hospitality, all the branding and the benefits, still coming on tour with us, still helping us to fund the facilities, the kit and the games programme.
"Everything that we do, the people who have got the corporate packages with me will still get exactly what we said they would get. And that's exactly the same with the Academy Friends.
"My newsletter which will go out next week will be an open letter to people explaining what’s happened and giving my thoughts.
"If anyone wants to come and chat things over, I’m more than happy to do so. I’m always there to meet up with everyone.”
Milton says the sponsors he has spoken to in the last couple of days have been supportive: "All the emails and conversations and text messages I’ve had from clients have said how sorry they are that we haven’t made it but that I can still count on their support, onwards and upwards, how disappointing it must be after all the work people such as [academy operations manager] Helen Broughton, Bryan and his team have put in.
"I’ve not had a negative comment from anybody who actively spends money with me. Obviously I haven’t spoken to all of them but the emails and calls and text messages I’ve had have all been very positive.
"We’re still trying to bring the best players that we possibly can through. We’re still going to coach them. It wasn’t category one or bust.”