Blues CEO Mark Ashton says the club's Playford Road academy is a vital part of the club and of great importance.

Fans have seen a number of academy products move on over the last year or so, Liam Gibbs to Norwich, Flynn Downes to Swansea and then within a year West Ham for £8 million, Andre Dozzell to QPR, Armando Dobra to Chesterfield after his contract was settled in the summer and Tyreece Simpson to Huddersfield at the end of the transfer window, while TWTD revealed yesterday that 14-year-old schoolboy left-back Teddie Bloomfield has moved to Aston Villa.

Asked about the importance of the academy at yesterday’s Fans’ Forum, Ashton said: “It’s a vital part of the football club. It’s really, really important to us. I’ve been asked time and time again, cat two versus cat one. It doesn’t really matter.

“What we’ve got to do is to make sure we have the best infrastructure that we can have, the best development programme that we can have for our players.

“One job only for the people in the academy, and that’s to get those players ready for [manager] Kieran [McKenna]’s first team as quickly as we possibly can.

“We’ve lost a few players but there are stories behind this that you don’t see. It would be remiss of me to mention his name, but one of our young players in the U14s/U15s now, who in the summer he was approached by one of the top six clubs in the Premier League [Tottenham, TWTD understands].

“One of the big guns came in, offered the compensation and we thought ‘He’s going to go’.

“They offered him a lot of money, the player met with the club, family met with the club. Family came and spoke to Kieran, family came back and said ‘No, the pathway’s better at Ipswich, we’re staying at Ipswich’.

“We hear a lot about the players that leave, but you don’t hear so much about the players that say no, the pathway’s here.

“If you think that a pathway is going to be better for any young player at a top-six Premier League club rather than Ipswich Town, well you cannot be serious.

“And with this man [McKenna] at the helm, they’ve got every opportunity of progressing.

“It is really, really important to us. We’ve brought in Dean Wright, who is now heading the academy, he’s reviewing everything at the moment.

“And like the rest of the club there will be further changes in the academy to take it forward. But from a business perspective, it’s a very, very important part of the club.”

Regarding the prospects of moving to category one, which we understand was something which was very seriously being looked at again by the previous regime before being abandoned due to the pandemic, Ashton added: “As I’ve said before, not at the moment. One, there’s no point in even considering that until the Premier League tell us what their long-term plans are for cat one because we would be then moving towards something when we don’t know what the future’s going to look like.

“But I think it’s more about what is right for this football club, what’s right for Ipswich Town and how do we set our standards higher, how do we make sure the individual and the team development programmes are in place and I think once we’ve got that done, then we have a look at the category status.

“If at that point we deem category one the right thing, by the way, we’ll go and do cat one. There’s no problem with that, but we’ve got work to do internally to get ourselves to the right standard before we do that.”

McKenna reiterated his view on the significance of bringing through young players: “I think I said in the first Fans’ Forum, it’s been my upbringing in football from being an academy player myself at a big club to the large majority of my career as a coach having been in academies, so it’s something very close to my heart.

“It’s something that I really enjoy, working with young players and bringing them into the first team. I think it’s something that can massively strengthen a football club because the connection between a homegrown player and the fans is not a connection that can be replicated with anything else.

“When we do have a player of that level or that potential level, then we have to look after them and provide a pathway for them as well as we possibly can.

“Obviously with that we have to marry up the club goals, which is to get out of League One and progress and grow the first team and get the first team back to where it belongs first of all.

“So it’s about marrying and balancing those goals up and rest assured young player who has the capability and the potential to play for us will be very well looked after when they want to be here and they want to be part of that journey.

“I think so far this season we’ve had Cameron Humphreys play two competitive games already. He played here against Colchester and played here against Northampton, performed very well.

“He’s a really important player for the future of the club potentially, but it’s important to note that it’s only potentially. He’s 18 years old, there are very, very few, if any, 18-year-olds playing in League One.

“So for now we have to manage his development very carefully and make sure that he gets the right amount of games, gets the right amount of exposure but is also protected and also has the right training pathway away from pitch.

“He’s certainly one at the moment, who we see as an important member of the squad and we have to make sure he gets the right experiences and we work alongside him to map out his next six months, his next 12 months, his next 18 months.

“For me, it’s really important, it’s a big focus. Of course, the players have to be of the potential to play for this team and the team is improving and the squad is improving, so there can’t be anything given just because it’s an academy player but when we do have a player of that ilk we will certainly do everything we can to give him the best chance to progress at the club.”

Photo: Blair Ferguson

therein61 added 18:42 - Sep 6 RE the value of an academy you only have to look at Ajax over the years who sell young players for a lot of money while still being successful they have done this season after season they have a great conveyor belt of talent ready to step into the 1st team(of course they sign a bit of experience at times to steady the ship while the flow continues) but what an example to follow.

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Ipswichbusiness added 08:10 - Sep 7 Therein61, I agree. Of course the other example is this club under Bobby Robson and that long list of players that we brought into the first team (I accept that things have changed since). The story about the lad who chose to stay is encouraging.
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acj added 18:48 - Sep 7 therein61 you can't seriously be trying to compare our situation with Ajax?! They're the biggest club in their country so have the pick of Dutch talent, whilst we're little old Ipswich. Of course the academy should be important to a club like ours, but that is so far removed from the reality of a club like Ajax.
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NITFC added 13:37 - Sep 8 For me, this is the only negative issue going on right now amongst so many positive things We all want the instant success that we have been starved if for so long and the way to get that is to buy better players than we already have, however is be to the detriment of the young lads coming through the system. Is that why the likes of Downes Gibbs and (say it quietly in case it comes back to bit us) Simpson have all left? Probably We need to get a blend. Cameron Humphreys looks the real deal to me and I don't buy it that he's not old enough at 18. Jude Bellingham was playing for England at 17. Obviously I'm not comparing the two players but Cameron needs to see a pathway to the first team and at least making the bench occasionally. Last week's signings must have felt like a setback for him. Let's hope there is room for young talent as well as excellent signings

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