Academy Status
The club gained academy status despite not having an indoor training pitch onsite, as a result Sunderland compete in the FA Youth leagues. These requirements are wide-reaching, and include indoor and outdoor training facilities, education provisions, and dedicated youth training areas.
Academy status means that the club can take part in the FA Premier Youth Leagues and play against other academy teams. This ensures youngsters are playing against the best players in the country in their age group. Academy teams also take part in the FA Youth Cup. Sunderland have won the FA Youth Cup twice, although the last time was in 1969.
Read more about this topic: Academy Of Light
Famous quotes containing the words academy and/or status:
“When the State wishes to endow an academy or university, it grants it a tract of forest land: one saw represents an academy, a gang, a university.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Knowing how beleaguered working mothers truly are—knowing because I am one of them—I am still amazed at how one need only say “I work” to be forgiven all expectation, to be assigned almost a handicapped status that no decent human being would burden further with demands. “I work” has become the universally accepted excuse, invoked as an all-purpose explanation for bowing out, not participating, letting others down, or otherwise behaving inexcusably.”
—Melinda M. Marshall (20th century)