I
am off to Manchester tomorrow to watch an independent school football
team from St Bede's College, play a local opposition Audenshaw
School. St Bede's is a Catholic school in south Manchester at
Alexandra Park and their sports fileds are nearby. The school plays
host to young footballers from Manchester City in a unique
educational programme designed to give a group of 14-16 year olds a
suitable education whilst they continue their dream of becoming
professional footballers with one of the richest clubs in the world.
Roy
Keane, growing up in the bleak northern suburbs of Cork, found
himself on course for a life without school qualifications where the
prize was a rare semi-skilled job in a tanking Irish economy. Keane
now regards his schooldays as one of his deepest regrets. "Today,
kids are smarter – or they should be," he wrote in his
autobiography. "An education and a career in football are not
mutually exclusive options." Keane has close links with St
Bede's, behind whose red-brick walls lies what could be the best
school football team in the world if it were ever allowed to play as
one.
He
has hosted charity events at St Bede's College, where Manchester City
educate their academy players and to boys like Charlie entering it
for the first time must have been intimidating. The entrance hall has
a mosaic floor on which is entwined a Latin greeting. Victorian
paintings gaze down from the walls and at the heart of the school is
an ornate Catholic chapel, where Roberto Mancini prayed before City
won the title with the final kick of the season. It is a place where
education and history matter. The boys joined the school as a group
and are now into the swing of the daily routine.
"We
were told straight away that we might not make it as footballers and
that the education we would get here might be our lifeline,"
says Charlie. "I was eight when I first came to City. I have
been at the club half my life.
"When
you are eight you are told that you are only coming to play football;
you don't think about the implications. It's fine; they don't talk to
you about education, they just want you to play. It was when I was
old enough to go to secondary school that the club talked to me about
education."
Dr
Andrew Dando, St Bede's director of studies, was the man City
approached when they decided that all their academy players would be
educated in one place. "Because we are an independent school we
are just that little bit more flexible," he says. "We start
relatively late and we finish relatively late and we are perhaps a
bit more used to dealing with the unusual.
"But,
educationally, we live and die by our statistics, so it is crucial
that these lads get good results because they will affect our league
table. But we know what course work they miss and we can plan around
it. When the boys had to go to a tournament in Qatar, the club paid
for a teacher to go with them."
At
a time when City are being castigated for "buying the league"
and are under investigation by Uefa for breaking Financial Fair Play
rules, this is the other side of a club that are investing heavily in
education both here at St Bede's and in a purpose-built Sixth Form
College close to the Etihad Stadium as part of the regeneration of
the area.
Initially,
there was some resistance from parents of existing pupils at St
Bede's who wondered what benefits 18 young footballers might bring to
a highly-academic college. "We had some baseline tests done on
pupils when they first came in and the first cohort City sent to us
was above average intelligence," Dr Dando adds. Footballers may
well have better intelligence than most.
"If
you think about it, it's not surprising. Their spatial awareness had
better be pretty good, they have to make rapid decisions and analyse
huge amounts of data. You may have some who don't show a great deal
of sense off the pitch but, essentially, they are pretty sharp."
"We
are much more aware of keeping young footballers' minds active than
we were then," says Mark Adams, City's head of education. "If
their minds are active, they are more likely to make the right
decisions when under pressure. The average age for a Premier League
debut is now 21. So they might have a career in the game but they
might need to be more patient.
Of
the intake of 18 who came to St Bede's three years ago, 12 have been
offered scholarships by City. Charlie's scholarship will involve two
years of playing for City's Under-18s combined with A-levels or, more
probably, B-Techs. "When I first came here I was going home
shattered," he adds. "Now I've got into the rhythm of it. I
have thought about what happens if I don't make it as a professional
and I'd like to be a physio. Sport is what I've known all my life and doing that would
keep me in it."
They
are not, incidentally, allowed to play for the St Bede's football
team. "It would be lovely to have them," says Dr Dando.
"But I think, having invested so much in these boys, City
wouldn't want us to muck it up – and I'm sure other schools might
object." Watch the video
http://www.mcfc.co.uk/citytv/features/2011/november/city-and-st-bedes-college-partnership
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