Following the announcement this week that the junior section of the academy would launch for the 2026/27 campaign, head of academy recruitment Justin Tellus sat down to give further insight into the move.
He said: “Obviously, the academy is hoping to progress further in the future from the current category four status to better things. It’s a really good time for us to launch it. After seeing successes like Gunner Elliott and others, it just shows inspiration for young people in the county and in the area to progress into Chesterfield Football Club.
“The main objective is to push for local recruitment. We’ve had various players come through our academy internationally, but obviously we want to grow and work with local talent, so it’s important that we really want to focus on local recruitment.
“The objective is really to try and work and increase the rate of local born players into the first team to really create that identity, and I think that’s something really important. Me personally, I’m a big fan of Athletic Bilbao and you look at their club policy and concept and it’s all about local recruitment and local players.
“So we’re not as far ahead as they are, but it’s the same sort of concept. We’re trying to create that local synergy for young people in the area.”
On the recruitment itself, he added: “We’ve got a bit of a database of players that we’d like to bring in. We’ll approach them in the off-season. Obviously, we want to make sure we’ve got a good relationship with the grassroots teams as well. So we’ll be speaking to grassroots teams first and then there’ll be a trial process where we’d like parents to apply on behalf of their children.
“For U7s to U8s, we’ll have a ‘little league’ where it’s just about them enjoying the game and getting a real good feel for the ball. For the U9s through to U16s we want local players to apply. There’ll be some processes obviously just to check the level and what they’re doing at the moment, and if their application is accepted they’ll be invited for a trial in June.
“We’re just about to confirm the dates in the next few days and once the lads have attended a trial in June, hopefully we’ll be in a place to start choosing these lads that will start in our development squads.”
With the academy remaining at category four status, please note that, as with every development squad, there will be a cost to playing which will facilitate pitch hire, coaching and other needs.
Further information on the application process will be provided in due course.
