ACADEMY

In the season 1999 - 2000 St Kevins Boys Club established a vibrant and innovative Schoolboy Football Academy. Run under the direction of Pat Cleary (Club Chief Coach) and Ken Donohoe (Director of Football) assisted by Alan Caffrey and Mark O'Shea the Academy impacted significantly on the standard of Club players and on the image of St Kevins Boys Club as a serious and well managed base for young players to commence their football education in pursuit of personal and professional excellence. Pat Cleary was instrumental in setting a high professional standard both on and off the pitch and it was a great blow when Pat left to join Bohemians as First Team Coach.The Academy is designed to enhance the technical abilities of selected players within the club. The players are selected after careful monitoring by Ken Donohoe (Director of Football). Following the departure of established Academy Coaches Alan Caffrey and Mark O’Shea to West Bromwich Albion (a fantastic opportunity for them and too good for them to turn down) earlier this year the Academy are delighted to have recruited Paul Boyle and the highly respected and much honoured Clubman Anto Wilkins. Over the years the Academy has proved to be very popular with the players and has enhanced the reputation of the club throughout the footballing community. Starting off in May 2000 when 3 groups of players were selected, these group received additional coaching from the Academy coaching staff on Friday nights. This was a unique development in Dublin Schoolboy football and we are proud of the fact that we were standard bearers in this field, being the first club to develop such a structure, many other clubs have now followed the same path and have actively sought our advice as our Academy is seen as the model template.The aim of the Academy was, and still is, on player development - by having them train together and to help them to play at the highest level possible, it also demands a total professional outlook and attitude among players and coaches and all players are encouraged to show the same professional attributes when training and playing with their teams.

The next phase in the development of the Academy was to produce a team made up from different age groups that would represent the club in the Foyle Cup in Derry. The Foyle Cup is a very prestigious, invite only competition that attracts the best of Irish and a number of well known international clubs and representative squads.
The first year out the Saints Academy team came a respectable 14th out of 24 teams. It was the following year, July 2003, that put them on the map as they finished 4th in the competition, losing out on penalties to the FAI Development Squad in the 3rd/4th place playoff.
This level of success has brought recognition to the St Kevins Boys Academy in terms of the requests for challenge games, most notably from our own Republic of Ireland representative teams.Some of the players in the youngest of the original Academy Group back in May 2000 have progressed on to the first rung of the ladder to try and make a career for themselves in the professional game in England. Karl Moore has signed for Manchester City, and Rene Gilmartin made his first team debut for Walsal recently. Quite a number of other players have had trials with various clubs and many others are sure to be offered similar trials in the future.

Hard work and total dedication are just two of the basic ingredients required by any player to have any chance of being successful no matter what level they play at, so it is no surprise that this is a cornerstone of Academy policy.