FORMER Bradford City manager Simon Grayson has set up a new football academy in Calverley.
Classes will be held at the Woodhall Sports Hub’s new £9.5m Leisure United facility.
The sessions, for under-sixes to under-14s, will be open for promising young talent from the likes of Bradford and Leeds.
Grayson’s new venture begins this coming Wednesday, and he talked the T&A through it, but he also had some interesting insights on the Bantams.
He isn’t thinking about going back into management currently, instead pouring his energy into bringing through the next generation.
But when we spoke to Grayson last Thursday, he talked about the club’s search for a new manager, while also admitting “one or two people” made his own job there untenable back in 2018.
We will get on to the academy chat soon enough, but first, here is what Grayson had to say about the Bantams, past and present.
Q: We know the success you had in League One with Leeds and Preston, but it didn’t work out at City. Did you get things wrong yourself there or do you think it was more about problems behind the scenes?
A: I think as a manager, you always look at yourself and think about what you could have done, but I was only there for a short space of time.
I actually turned down the opportunity of a longer contract to stay at the club, but I just couldn't see myself working with one or two people at the club and how that was going to work (going forward).
I could sense there was going to be issues going along the way, and unfortunately for the club, that came true with the relegation very quickly afterwards.
It was the right club for me, but probably just at the wrong time, because I felt I could use my experience of getting teams promoted and be successful there, like Graham Alexander has.
But I just didn't see it working in that period of time because of one or two people at the club.
Q: Could you have foreseen City’s rise over the last few years under Graham Alexander?
A: You could because it's a huge football club and it's ex-Premier League.
That's why I was attracted to go there when I went a few years ago.
The people behind the scenes probably weren’t the ideal people at the time for me, but you could see why Bradford City can be successful.
Obviously, they'll be looking for a manager and I'm sure there'll be plenty of people that'll be very interested, top of League One, with a huge fan base, looking to bring the glory days back.
It's a huge wrench for Bradford to be without Graham and I'm sure it was not easy for him to leave to go to Preston.
But it's a big opportunity for somebody else to come in and why not have a successful season?
It's a real tough division is League One at the moment because of the size of clubs that are in there.
But hopefully this won't derail any of Bradford's ambitions of trying to get back up the higher reaches of the pyramid.
City are firmly in the League One automatic promotion race and Simon Grayson hopes losing Graham Alexander won't derail the club's progress. (Image: Thomas Gadd)
Q: You’ve mentioned that you might not go back into football management. What was it that inspired you to set up this academy instead?
A: I think it's just got to the stage of where I am in my career, but I’m never going to with going back to full-time work.
My last job I was in Indonesia with the national team in March, April time.
That was something that I enjoyed doing and it was like going to be on a camp-to-camp basis, window to window.
There have been a few issues but it's something that I wouldn't mind doing on that basis.
But I've got a little bit more times where I can give something back to grassroots football because it's such an important part of everybody's lives.
I’ve had 40 years in the game, but you start at grassroots football as a young kid being taken to the games by your parents.
You see people giving up time and effort, committee members, grassroots, team coaches.
I just felt that it was something at the right time to open it up and pass on my 40 years of experience in the professional game and open up our academy.
I’m trying to run it a little different to other academies, as all these little quirks that you have in professional football, maybe we can pass on those gems of gold to the kids.
Q: What’s the main thing you want them the kids to take from being at your academy?
A: All I want them to do is to just to enjoy themselves, but also to learn and develop and be the best they can be.
The one thing with my academy is we're not going to have any teams, so we're not playing on a weekend.
We’re not in competition with all the local teams around the area.
We basically want to encourage children who want to come for extra coaching.
We want to improve them as young players and hopefully they'll go back to their (grassroots) clubs and improve their teams.
We want to work with in partnership with grassroots clubs rather than being competitors with them.
Simon Grayson is taking all of his experiences in football into his new coaching academy. (Image: Thomas Gadd)
Q: This academy is very much about helping those kids playing in parks fulfilling their footballing potential then?
A: Yeah, exactly, every local team around the area that wants to have extra coaching for their players, that's what we're looking to do.
I can't promise this, but if I do see people that I think are really talented and have got a chance, I will use my contacts and influences to maybe get some of the children into academies.
In football, you can never guarantee anything, but the bottom line is that we want the children to improve themselves and learn a lot of different habits about what’s required to make it as a professional.
Or to be the best they can be at whatever level they do reach as a player.
Q: Tell us a bit more about the facility, the areas and the people you’re looking to reach?
A: It's a brand new complex, so we're working out of there three nights a week on a Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, anything from under 6s to under 14s.
Thursday is a completely girls’ night as well because the sessions are mixed apart from them, because some girls maybe won't feel comfortable in mixed football.
We’re going to have a section where we have a goalkeeping coach coming in to train keepers.
It’s for people from any area they are willing to travel from, whether it is from East Leeds over to the Calverley area, or around Bradford and that area northwest and west of Leeds.
We're trying to do is again bring different things to this academy, so I'll have guest coaches that will come down and do things for me, from ex-managers potentially, or ex-players.
We’ll also have sessions where part of the hour will be in the classroom with a physio, a dietician, a nutritionist or somebody from the data world, to give insight into those departments as well.
It’s just giving them a little bit more inside information of what happens in the world of professional football.
Q: You’re back home now but you talked about being out Indonesia and you managed in India too. How much do you feel you've developed as a person and as a coach having those experiences?
Q: I feel that I'm a better coach and a better person now than I was when I won my last promotion 11 years ago (with Preston) because of the experiences that I've had and the tough times you got through when it doesn't work for you.
Simon Grayson (right) and Jermaine Beckford celebrate after Preston beat Swindon 4-0 in the 2014-15 League One play-off final at Wembley. (Image: Daniel Hambury/PA)
Going out to India, Nepal and Indonesia stepped me out of a comfort zone, which is what I wanted to do.
When I was in England, I knew every player in the EFL and you knew most things that were going on, so I just wanted to do something different.
You’re going to a different continent, with a different culture and environment, and you’re having to manage different types of players and people.
It was basically starting afresh and an unbelievable learning experience.
It’s probably one of the best things I've done from a football perspective, but also a life experience of meeting new people, making contacts and seeing a part of the world that I probably never thought I would do.
It was an incredible period for me, from working with international players in India at top-flight level, then going on my own to Nepal with no staff, whereas in India I had two or three.
I worked for a franchise team in Nepal where the players were bought for me, so I didn't know anything about them.
I worked on my own for eight weeks, and again it was an unbelievable life experience, but out of your comfort zone of what you're doing.
This is why I want to do the academy because all these experiences I want to give back to the grassroots level of what's required there.
If you look at the Bradford area for example, there are obviously lots of different cultures and people there.
There’s having that understanding of what they may need, but you’ve always got to adapt and manage people in a positive manner.
You can book your children on to coaching sessions at the academy by visiting the link: https://simongraysonfootballacademy.co.uk/