Football News: Hearts Take Academy To The Next Level

Heart of Midlothian have refused to sit on their laurels, following a successful season with their young squad winning promotion back to the SPFL at the first attempt. While most clubs would be basking in the glory of a team made up of a large proportion of youth academy graduates, Craig Levein, in his role of Hearts director of football is already looking forward to the future.

First off additions were made to the Riccarton coaching staff with Jack Ross appointed as U20s manager, Roger Arnott the new academy manager and John Robertson brought in as an U17 coach. Over the last six months Levein worked with Ross, Arnott, Robertson, head coach Robbie Neilson and Stevie Crawford to write a whole new training programme for the 13 years old and older to use in their 11 a side regime.

The biggest addition of all is the Ian Cathro (now Newcastle United assistant manager) devised Box Clever training system for the younger age groups to use, to build their technique and prepare them for the step up from seven a side matches to the full eleven a side game. Box Clever was created by Cathro when he was just a teenager trying to find his way into professional football coaching.

It uses a 24 metres square area to teach technique, movement, skills and quick thought to youngsters. Next season the youth players aged from 9 to 12 will benefit from the system. Craig Levein was so impressed with his first impression of the Cathro system that Levein made him junior academy manager at Dundee United when Cathro was just 22.

"My introduction to Box Soccer was with Ian up at Dundee United," he explained. "When I went there as manager, I went to watch a kids game on a Sunday morning. I watched our team playing and there were four players in the team who were technically just miles ahead. So I made some enquiries about why these guys were so much better than the other players.

"I don't think it was any coincidence these guys were in Ian's coaching schools. He wrote the programme. I have said it before, but I think he is a genius when it comes to this type of thing. So he developed the Box Soccer programme and at the same time I invited him in to go full-time at Dundee United.

"The Box Soccer thing became part of what we were doing at Dundee United. I think his idea to grow it and to roll it out UK-wide took a back seat because he then started to become more involved in full-time football."

Written by Tris Burke July 16 2015 07:27:38