New consortium ready to place the emphasis on youth development

Oct 15 2008 by Paul Thomson, East Kilbride News

UNDER the new plans revealed for East Kilbride Thistle this week there will be an extension to the club’s already successful youth development programme.

With a new stadium expected to be built by 2012 at the latest, board member Iain King explained that the plan is to have facilities for the youth teams at the new home of East Kilbride Thistle.

King said: “The academy that Thistle have started is something I'm very passionate about.

“We will get involved in that development, put a structure on it so that all the teams are there and we will be playing as East Kilbride Thistle in all the different leagues.

“From that platform the players will get fed into the top team, so when it becomes a professional team there's a whole community feeling behind the club.

“There will be two astroturf pitches for the academy and a gym inside the main stand.

“The academy would be based there with a classroom for the kids to learn about the things we're passionate about like diet and those kinds of things.”

King has been working with the Kean’s at Jackton Boys Club and they have formed a successful partnership there taking the side to great heights in this, its first season.

The club has already delivered a trophy to the cabinet in the form of the Edinburgh Cup and they have secured a number of sponsorship deals.

And King admitted that with the contacts the consortium have built up, they are hoping to bring the best trainers to Thistle and have links with clubs abroad.

He added: “Obviously there’s my contacts and with James' contacts we can use these to get the involvement of people like Ally McCoist, Barry Ferguson and John Brown to train the kids.

“That side of things is only going to get improved upon as things go on as we're going to link up with Jorg Albertz's soccer school in Germany, twin with teams in Florida and Atlanta and these teams will come over here to play and vice-versa.

“We want to get to the situation where any kid in the East Kilbride area wants to play for East Kilbride Thistle.”