And he's a Town fan - excellent!

Well, can't claim any knowledge of him whatsoever other than what's in the article above. However he's certainly put in the hard yards and is a Town fan, so it's at least a good start.

Pete's definitely a Town fan. Remember him from when I travelled away with Witham Branch in the late 80s.

Braund hails from the Ipswich region and first visited his hometown club's stadium at the age of three. Now, he takes on the role of Head of European Scouting at the current Championship third-place team. Contact was established in the autumn of last year, and an agreement was quickly reached. Braund describes the opportunity to work for the club that shaped his childhood as a "special chance" that he didn't want to pass up.

Second stint ends
With this move, Braund's second stint at Hannover 96 comes to an end. He only returned to the Maschsee stadium in April 2024. He had previously worked for the Lower Saxony club between January 2007 and August 2010, at that time as Chief Scout.

The Englishman spent the majority of his career at Manchester United. Other clubs he played for include Tottenham Hotspur, Aarhus GF, and Grasshopper Club Zurich.

Close ties to Hannover
Braund emphasizes that leaving is difficult for him. Ipswich, Manchester United, and Hannover 96 are "his clubs." He intends to maintain contact with Lower Saxony, particularly with Managing Director Jörg Schmadtke and his former colleagues.

Schmadtke understands the decision. They were aware of Braund's plans early on and adjusted the scouting structure accordingly. The existing team will remain in place and will be supplemented selectively by external service providers. "This puts us in a sound position," said Schmadtke.

In his farewell remarks, he praised the Englishman's professionalism: Braund was fully committed until the very end. Hannover 96 is losing an internationally connected expert – and bidding farewell to an employee who will remain closely connected to the club.

Wedemark is north of Hannover distanced about an hour and a half drive from me

Another positive move by the Club.The future can only be better.This is one area we have done well enough.

Hannover 96 are currently 5th in the German second division - 3 points off a promotion place to the Bundesliga and Harry Kane.

Our recruitment is definitely an area that could do with some improvement.
This guy appears to have plenty of experience ,let's hope he can unearth a few oversea's gems in the next year or two.

It would be interesting to know what players he has found over the years

Anyone know his record as a scout? I mean, what players did he identify for United or Spurs?

All sounds promising, but yes the proof is in the pudding. Who is he responsible for bringing to his previous clubs? If anyone knows, shoot us all a post!

Ok so maybe if he's covered the likes of Denmark, Germany, Eastern Europe, Russia, Ukraine & Turkey...
If he had anything to do with bringing Nemanja Vidic from Spartak Moscow then he struck gold there, Shinji Kagawa and Henrikh Mkhitarayan from Dortmund, and Bastian Schweinstieger from Munich, though they were all pretty prominent teams and players at that time. Can't think of any decent players from those parts of Europe going to Spurs through his tenure! Unless he snuck over the bridge from Denmark and picked up Dejan Kulusevki from Sweden when he was home from Juventus for christmas.

Having a presence and a respected presence in Europe is a wonderful thing after so many years under Evans just covering East Anglia.

Sounds very positive in what must be a very competitive market. Good luck, Peter!

Im so glad this has finally happened. But my God just how far off the track has ITFC been for so long! Even scum have had an overseas scouting network for years..

I can’t find any evidence of those clubs signing players from those regions during what spans an entire career. Whoever did that region when Spurs signed Erikson deserves a knighthood. Most of those periods both Utd and Spurs were poor in the markets generally.

Not a bad job, lovely parts of the world ‘nobody good enough boss’. And at their ages and profiles are they really at the leading edge of data analysis like Brighton, Bournemouth, Brentford are, and where you NEED to be to be successful. I hate to be ageist, and maybe they’re data gods. But they’ve certainly spent their careers using very different methods to the ones teams are having success with today.

They seem the exact profiles successful sides have moved away from (quickly).

Time will tell. But we’ve now indexed ourselves to recruitment teams that have proven to add little to no value at the elite end, they seem vastly experienced, and either they are, or it’s one years experience repeated many times over. With no added value outcomes that can easily be identified.

I give up on Ashton. It certainly doesn’t look anything like elite, or what elite looks like, or building process that’s future proof and can compete with clubs no bigger than us. But who have done this stuff incredibly well. To a brilliant standard, globally - and of note they aren’t signing players from these regions. They’re better quality, outcomes. And value come from South America, Portugal, France etc etc

If Mick was a dinosaur then Ashton looks Paleozoic. What with this and his WBA Rolodex, I’m half expecting to see an 80’s Audi Quattro in the car park any day.

In all seriousness. He’s breaking my heart now .., a generational opportunity, and what was a the right man at the right time when he was appointed, is looking increasingly out of his depth at the higher levels. He looked great in league one. With players signing for Paul Cook. Gave KM brilliant support which worked well, until it didn’t and he dug a £200 million hole.

Zero oversight, agency and accountability. Sigh .., checks bank balance, I should have enough in 100 years. Best data modelling in the world and best hungry proven scouts using it ‘loading’.

To not be building data modelling around AI support AND experience, and around aggregating data, in this day and age, it’s like watching Ashton trying to solve quantum theory with his abacus. FFS.

Wake me up when he’s done .., although we need new owners at this point, how they can’t see the weaknesses and threats at this point is poor - a set of similar aged and skilled people, with group think…, Ashton is poor at the level part six million.

This is going to be some job to sort out if we don’t get promotion and paper over the failings with £150 million.

How does a club with SO much potential give ONE PERSON this level of autonomy…, it’s criminal.

Hopefully Braund wasn't behind signings like Rasmus Hojlund for £72m and Andre Onana for £43m!

Sounds a perfect person to be joining, but let's make no mistake, we need some of these scouting/recruitment hires to start delivering players and improve our transfer activity.

Finally, a Town fan actually qualified to really comment on our signings and will be accountable for their suggestions.

It's a wonder, darkhorse28, that you have not been recruited by the club given your extensive expertise on all matters.

Darkhorse28. Omg. You really are the biggest moron around. How do you know who hexhas or hasnt scouted for clubs?" Answer is, u dont. But you just have to comment and slag off Ashton or the club. Why dont you just do everyone a,favour, and keep ur puerile comments to urself.

Good news?! Hopefully a big yes.
This where it’s all gone wrong this Season if you were to pinpoint one thing - this is it.
All the Strikers signed have been v poor. Egeli has been poor the months too.
For some reason the Team has hasn’t gelled all Season.

Data is great, in all aspects of life, I use it a lot. However when it comes down to football, it's very inadvisable and a big mistake to use data alone. You need live evidence of a player as well ( not cobbled together You Tube highlights! ) and you need to know their temperament, personality, are they a team player etc? Those sort of things you won't get from data alone, doesn't matter who's pressing the keys.

As mentioned above the likes of Brighton, Brentford and Bournemouth have been doing a great job. It would be very interesting to know how our " set up " compares with theirs. We should have our own top grade data programme by now, being run by people who know how to use it!