Inside The Academy: Nick Cox reflects on honour of a lifetime

It has been truly the honour of a lifetime to be part of such a fabulous team of colleagues upholding the proud tradition of youth development at this football club, forged by generations of talented coaches and developers before us. Custodianship is only ever temporary, so, when the day comes for each of us to depart, the aim should be to leave our part of the club in a better place than when we arrived.

With the support of so many wonderful people across the Academy over the past 10 years, we have collectively achieved that objective. It is impossible to capture everything we have done together, each strand of the programme has been refined but highlights include the enhanced provision of player support, the modernisation of our coaching curriculum, our post-Brexit recruitment, overhauls of our pre-Academy phase and emerging talent programme, an enhanced tours and tournaments programme, and the strengthening of our education provision which saw us partner with Manchester Grammar school to complement our long-standing work with Ashton on Mersey School.

Innovations have included the embedding of a player-coach at the heart of our Professional Development Phase, the launch of our Pro Experience Programme as a precursor to formal loans, a new bio-banding programme to find the right balance between physical and technical development, and regular parent conferences as part of strengthened communication with our players’ families and carers. Our response to COVID is something we can all be particularly proud of; inspiring and creative work ensured that staff, players and families were kept safe, connected and cared for. We have also transformed our offering to alumni, inspired by the late, great Joe Thompson, who helped guide us towards a modern approach to supporting our former players.

While a good Academy is so much more than a production line, we are ultimately judged by the quality of players we develop. Here too, we can look back with satisfaction at our record of delivering 35 first team debuts over the past decade. During that period, Academy graduates have accounted for a quarter of all first team minutes played at Manchester United; an unrivalled statistic.

We are now up to 254 homegrown players in the history of the club, the day we reached the landmark of 250 in April 2024 was a particularly proud one. We have now reached 4,327 consecutive games since 1937 with an Academy graduate in our first team matchday squad. These records represent a thread connecting the thousands of young players and coaches who have passed through our youth system since its inception, to those tasked with keeping the legacy going into the future.

Personal highlights include the night in Astana in 2019 when nine current or former Academy players featured in the starting XI, with a further seven on the bench. The EFL Cup final win against Newcastle in 2023 featured six graduates, and the FA Cup final against Manchester City the following year had five, including Kobbie Mainoo and Alejandro Garnacho, who scored the winning goals.

Academy football is about developing players above silverware, we can all be really proud of our how we define success, which go far beyond debuts. Instead we focus on supporting players to reach their full potential with the pursuit of excellence enabling players to enjoy personal growth and develop skills which set them up to thrive in adult life regardless of their football achievements.

However, that doesn’t stop us celebrating the trophies when they come. We rarely shout about it to protect our players under the age of 16, but we have won numerous competitions, cups and leagues at younger age groups in recent years. The Under-18s treble in 2024 was an incredible achievement and, for everybody involved, the 2022 Youth Cup win in front of 67,000 fans at Old Trafford will remain a cherished memory.

For all these successes, only a fraction of the boys who enter our programme make it to the first team. Our job is to ensure that every one of them is enriched by their experience, however long their journey with us. The bar to reach our first team is very high and some of the greatest satisfaction in this job has been seeing former players going on to achieve success elsewhere. We can all be very proud of the revenue generated from player sales in recent years and the reinvestment of those funds into new players and enhanced facilities.

We have also seen numerous staff succeed after dedicating themselves to help our players improve during their time at United. Kieran McKenna (Ipswich Town), Justin Cochrane (Spurs and England), Dave Hughes (Newport County), Paul McShane (Huddersfield), Tom Huddlestone (Birmingham City) are just some of the coaches now working with first-team environments. There are so many more dedicated professionals making a real impact in roles across the game.

At every level of English and European football, there are talented players and staff who started their careers in our Academy, and many others who have left football but still draw on valuable life lessons from Carrington.

I will always remember watching Joe, one of our U13s at the time, read a poem he’d written himself in front of 2,000 people at a memorial service at the site of the Munich Air Disaster. It took spirit and bravery for him to stand there and represent the badge so well – as impressive in its own way as any individual achievement on the pitch.

In a similar category, a young lad who suffered a devastating family tragedy turned up to training the day after. I remember, alongside the grief for him, a sense of satisfaction that this club was his safe place — the place that, in his moment of need, he wanted to hang out, because he could be himself, be normal and escape the challenges he’d faced. That’s the result of a fantastic group of staff who will continue to do that work. They help the players, and they help each other. I know that because when I lost my Dad last year, this place became an extended family that looked after me.

It’s been a privilege, this job. I have a lot of people to thank for their support, starting with of course my family who have made so many sacrifices and given limitless love and support to enable me to do what I do.

I have received incredible support throughout my time here and I’ll be forever grateful to the Academy staff. It would be impossible to name everyone who has supported me but they know who they are and how the vital role they have played in our achievements together.

I have received incredible support from staff in Academy leadership roles, Travis Binnion, Dave Bushell, Tom Curtis, Luke Federenko, Steve Higham, Nathan McConville, Eamon Mulvey, Dan Ransom, Ian Smithson and Matt Walker and their teams have all played vital roles in the creation of our environment.

I’d also mention two unsung heroes: Clare Nicholas and Marie Beckley, who have been here for more than 30 years. They’ve worked out of the spotlight but have been fundamental to every success. They represent many staff in the Academy and across the club that are fundamental to the way we work but are rarely in the public eye.

The support the Academy receives from across the club is incredible. It comes from every department: catering staff, media team, legal team, finance, ticket office, club shop, the foundation and many more. That culture comes from the top, and I’d like to thank Omar Berrada and Jason Wilcox for their support and belief in the Academy during the time we have worked together.

My final note of thanks is due to you, the fans. I am so grateful to every supporter who has engaged with the Academy, whether by attending games, or following from afar. Your passion makes a real contribution to players’ development by helping them understand what it means to represent Manchester United.

Please be as welcoming and supportive to my successor, Stephen Torpey, as you have been to me. I send him my very best wishes as he becomes custodian for the next phase of our Academy’s evolution.