Currie: “The Boys Are Really Up For This League”

The new so called ‘Super League’ for academy sides is proving a big success and one man impressed is Dave Currie, the head of Guiseley Academy.

Currie has run Guiseley Academy since it was established seven years ago and in that time has enjoyed success with two of his graduates, Jermaine Wilson (Caymen Islands) and Tabish Hussain (Pakistan) achieving full international honours writes Rachel O’Connor.

Others such as Ben Whitfield (Bournemouth), Jacob Brown (Barnsley), Tom Stewart (Morecambe) and Jake Young (Sheffield United) joined full-time clubs from the Nethermoor Academy.

Guiseley Academy were invited into the new two division north and south National League Football Academy ‘super league’ for the current season and despite Currie, through injury, having to play many first year scholars they are holding their own in a competitive league. Indeed they have been in the top two for much of the time but the real test, as Currie acknowledges, will be to survive the full season in the top five, not just be up there after seven games, five of which they have won.

The staff are loving the challenge of the new league set up and believes his players do too, although they now face a big challenge in every game.

He said: “The boys are really up for this league and are working really hard on and off the field. We have had our setbacks with major injuries to leading scorer Adam Haw and our captain Nick Brayshaw but first years have stepped up and have done well. These boys are learning all the time and learning fast.”

Currie knows that to win the new league would be a bigger feather in his cap than winning the league title they won last season. He said: “This is certainly a step up as we are up against clubs with much bigger finances and much better facilities but we work very hard to recruit players.

“We just hope that they take a look at our past record in the league and in how we have developed players who are now playing at high levels, with Jake Young close to the Sheffield United first team squad and Jacob Brown now established as a first team and EFL regular at Barnsley with over 50 games for them.”

Currie admitted recruitment is tough but that is why they have got an Centre of Excellence which is slowly expanding and producing players for the 16-18 year old programme.

“This is how we got left-back Nathan Newall who is now knocking on the first team door and was the new Academy League’s Player-of-the-Month back in October. Nathan has progressed well and has appeared as a first team sub a few times. The Centre of Excellence has some really good coaching staff and is led by our U16’s manager and former Sheffield United Academy coach Karl Parkin. Karl has the same vision as myself – to grow the reputation Guiseley AFC Centre of Excellence and I believe that we are well on our way to achieving that.

The Academy finished the decade with two 3-0 wins within three days against Solihull Moors in the league and AFC Fylde in the National League Cup.

The Young Lions face Solihull Moors in the reverse fixture at Nethermoor in their first game of 2020 on Wednesday with kick-off at 2pm.

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