The Infrastructure Projects

[Jean_claude_killy]

The works could have been done 5, 10, 15 years ago but they weren't.

At the end of last season we had a pandemic, EM talked to some Americans about a possible sale and there was  huge changes behind the scenes with Dane and a raft of others coming to the club. I think it was more than enough for one summer.

Doughty did a fantastic job of building the Academy; the site was originally intended for use by the under age sides and was not used for first team training until Billy's first spell in charge.

Two things then happened which had a huge impact on the club; Doughty passed away in February 2012 and later that year the Category system was introduced.

Once the criteria became clear on how the status would work, it became evident that we would not qualify for Cat 1 because we did not have an educational facility on the Gresham site - the other prohibitive factor was the minimum amount which Clubs must spend to retain Cat 1 status, which was then around 2m

Fawaz had no interest in the Academy, in fact Billy, during his second spell did his utmost to run it down; he fired John Pemberton - this led to Pemberton knocking Billy out, an event which should have been filmed and included in that montage which is played on the big screen before every home game - and forced Nick Marshall out, he then installed one of his relations to run the Academy and managed to find space in the youth set up for his sons.

After Fawaz came EM

When people start berating Marinakis for not going for Cat 1 at an earlier date they overlook one crucial aspect - the evaluation of Academy status is an ongoing process which has a three year time span - application for change of status can only occur during the designated period during that cycle; this effectively means you get one chance every three years.

EM took over the Club in May 2017; the next anniversary for change of status was 2018.

I think most reasonable people would acknowledge the fact that the Club that EM purchased in 2017 was not in the best of health and the priority at that time was to get the Club running as it should be; one thing which was crystal clear at the time was the Academy would be in no state to qualify for Cat 1 status in 2018.

This meant that the next opportunity to qualify for Cat 1 would not be until 2021.

Another aspect which might not be common knowledge is that the qualification process takes place over a period of time (I think it is over a 12 month period); it is not just a case of an assessor turning up on a given date and running through a tick box check; the process is vastly more thorough than that - to have a good run at qualifying in 2021 we would have had to start work the best part of 18 months in advance of that.

The fact that we managed to get interim status should be looked on as a massive achievement for Gary Brazil and his team and for EM for supporting them all down the line.

But that is not enough; the minute we get Cat 1, the Club are criticised for not moving to a state of the art training Ground as was promised.

I was told we did have another site lined up, not too far away from the Ground, but it was re zoned for Housing and it fell through, and that was the main factor in deciding to develop the existing site.