The Academy
- As of 1 June 2012.
As an ambitious club with aspirations of European football, the objective of Newcastle's Academy is to develop players and their football-playing abilities to their fullest potential, so that these players might someday contribute to Newcastle's success on the pitch. This is made possible by guaranteeing the best training, education and management to the region’s most promising players. Newcastle United is among those teams that run an Academy for their youth players without actually having their own youth training facility. This means that the youth teams practice at different locations, in facilities rented from universities or from the city. However, they are in the process of building their own purpose-built Academy.
The academy comprises age-group teams ranging from Under-9's up to the flagship Under-18's, who currently compete in Group D of the FA Premier Academy League and in the FA Youth Cup (a tournament which they have won twice). They play their home games at academy base at Little Benton, located to the immediate south of Darsley Park. FA Youth Cup home games are usually played at St James' Park.
In 2001–02 the Academy were the inaugural winners of the FA Premier Academy League. Notable graduates include former number nine Andy Carroll, now at Liverpool, Northern Ireland international Aaron Hughes, now at Fulham, current Celtic coach Alan Thompson and retired England international Paul Gascoigne as well as current first team defender Steven Taylor and striker Shola Ameobi.
Read more about this topic: Newcastle United F.C. Reserves And Academy
Famous quotes containing the word academy:
“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)
“I realized early on that the academy and the literary world alike—and I don’t think there really is a distinction between the two—are always dominated by fools, knaves, charlatans and bureaucrats. And that being the case, any human being, male or female, of whatever status, who has a voice of her or his own, is not going to be liked.”
—Harold Bloom (b. 1930)