International Academy Launched

By Mark Heys
January 24 2007

A new website has been launched in conjunction with a recent initiative which encourages organisations around the world to send their young players to the Bolton Wanderers youth academy.

Recently the Wanderers appointed John Hindley to promote the newly formed BWFC international football academy and he will be taking on the title of International Academy manager from next month.

The scheme aims to bring clubs from across the globe together with Bolton Wanderers so that they can exchange and implement new ideas as well as find the next generation of players.

In the nine years since the original Bolton Academy was formed the club has had players from Poland, USA, Australia, Sweden, Germany within their junior ranks and this new idea is in place with the aim of casting the net even further.

Bolton recently signed an agreement for this venture to be based at Hopwood Hall College, a new £6 million building which opened just over a year ago in September 2005 offering the latest facilities including a learning resource centre.

In addition, the sports centre where the training will take place includes the latest oxide cardio and resistance training equiptment as well as some of the region's best all weather and floodlit football pitches.

The courses open to players can be a one day basic course or a week long residential course and some of the interesting things that players/coaches will go through are described below.

- Fitness testing delivered by Academy Sports Science team.

- Sports psychologists who deliver a series of sessions taken from the first team delivery that will include personal profiles, self talk, imagery etc.

- Football specific conditioning coaches expert in their field of instruction in physically conditioning players, who will fitness test them and measure their scores against the Club's first team and Academy players.

- Diet and nutrition seminars.

- Match analysis/video seminars.

- Behind the scenes tour of the Reebok Stadium.

- Games against Academy squads or local teams' dependant on level.

- Full organised activities in and around the area.

- Fully equipped English lessons for foreign teams and individuals who want to extend their development both on and off the field.

- Full 24 hour supervision by BWFC coaches.

Clubs from the UK, South Africa, USA, Iceland, India and Ireland have already expressed an interest in taking part in the project and more information can be found via the clubs new official youth website www.bwfcia.co.uk