Ben Chenery took over as Town’s academy manager over the summer, following Dmitri Halajko’s elevation to director of football operations, and TWTD spoke to him about his first few months in the job as the Blues’ youth set-up stepped up to category one.
Although new to his current role Chenery’s Ipswich Town history goes back to the mid-nineties to his own time as a young player, working with names long associated with developing young players with the Blues.
"Peter Trevivian coached me along with Bryan Klug,” he recalled. "I was here as a schoolboy at the Centre of Excellence, living in Chantry with my mum and we’d train in the old gym that’s now been turned into offices.
"At times there was myself, James Scowcroft, people like that, but Pete said I wasn’t going to get a YTS scheme, so Terry Wesley, who was working in the community, took me to Luton.
"That was going from being really disappointed as an Ipswich lad not getting a YTS apprenticeship to going to Luton and fortunately I made my debut at 17 under David Pleat, so it was a success story in the end. But I had some great times at the football club here, I loved it.”
Spells with Cambridge United and then in non-league with the likes of Canvey Island, for whom he scored the winner in the 2001 FA Trophy final, and Chelmsford followed for the defender, before a move into coaching at Bury Town, who he managed from 2014 until 2023, while also having some involvement at Playford Road as U15s lead coach and U21s support coach.
"I really enjoyed my time there,” he said of his long spell at Ram Meadow. "Working in education as well, doing some part-time work here at Ipswich and was really fortunate and privileged to take some of the young scholars from Ipswich Town to Bury Town to play senior football, which I think worked really well and helped their development.
"So I’ve always had a keen eye on development, but have also been fortunate enough to work through the age ranges, from senior level right down to the 11s and 12s, so it’s given me a good breadth of knowledge and understanding of development, I think.”
Reflecting on his new role, which followed a two-year spell at Tottenham as youth development lead phase coach and then U21s assistant manager, he said: "I’ve been trusted with the development of the academy in terms of player and staff from the U21s, right down to the little ones into the foundation phase.
"Dmitri had stepped up to Gary [Probert]’s role [following his departure for Liverpool] and I feed into Dmitri. Dmitri manages me and my job is to go into cat one, into this new exciting time for the football club, to try and add some value where I can in, on and off the pitch.
"It is a huge job to come into and I think going away to work at Tottenham was really good for my development. It gave me the opportunity to work with some really good, top talented football players, also some really good staff in terms of how we develop, how we talk to these young people.”
The 48-year-old says he is trying to instil a working ethos into young players: "Probably football’s changed enormously over my time, but I still have these old-school values - players wear black boots, players have shin pads which should be suitable for the game, players have their socks pulled up.
"It’s work, we’re working, we’re paid. We’ve go to make sure that we have that accountably.
"I’m really positive that the U18s when they come in here, their phones get handed in and looked after securely.
"We’re working with football, but we’re developing them as people and I’ve now brought that in with the U21s.
"It’s really important that when we’re in the canteen when we are eating, U21s and academy staff, we don’t have phones in there. We’re talking, we’ve lost that some sometimes in life.
"Put the phone to one side for half an hour, let’s get to know each other, let’s talk, let’s talk football, let’s just talk life, let’s just get to know these people and get to know each other as staff.
"That for me is really important, those old-school values, which I think should always remain because they're the truths in football, these things should always be there.
"I don’t think we can go too far away from that because ultimately, yes, we’re trying to make elite footballers here, but we really want to make exceptional people. That’s how I see it and how the football club also sees it. You can see that with the first team, how it’s about the culture and the environment.
"I would say you’ve got to work hard, you’ve got to turn up on time, you’ve got to be accountable every single day. You’ve got to max out every single day.
"And do that while being a really good person, with bit of edge because you’re going to need that, you certainly need to bring that every single day.
"If they don’t bring that every single day, then we can’t add the detail, the nuances and the specifics in football, staff as well as players, in terms of how we up-skill or how we improve.
"If we don't bring those non-negotiables, then we may fall short. I’ve experienced where people have an exceptional amount of talent, but it is the turn-up-on-time, the maxing-out, the working hard, the good person with an edge, being ready for training, being ready to play daily.
"I think that’s the relentless nature of what football is and we have to find that consistency in these young people and we strive every day to try and make sure that that happens.”