BRACKNELL Town FC are planning to recruit the cream of the local talent – from the age of seven upwards, writes Dave Wright.

And the youngsters will be taught much the same way as all the other age groups, right up to senior level.

"We want a consistent approach at every level throughout the whole club," stated chairman Kayne Steinborn-Busse.

"We want everything to line up, everybody working as one collective coaching and management team to deliver what is going to be expected in the future.

"We have recruited a big coaching team with UEFA B and A level coaching from the first team down to the youngest youth teams.

"If you have great coaching, great development and great facilities, you will attract the best players to the club.

"If you then improve them year on year, you may lose a few on the way to professional clubs, but if that does happen then it would be fantastic as it means we have done our job.

"That is where we are as a club. We want to be able to produce a lot of talent in the future. We have been focussed on this for the past 12 months."

Bracknell are now taking their coaching to a new level with the introduction of their own Academy based at Larges Lane with 20 American students arriving in August when they will join up with the same number of local youngsters.

And there could also be up to 20 Japanese students coming as well.

"This is very much a commercial adventure, bringing in players from overseas for a year to two years, to live in like a full-time professional environment," stated Steinborn-Busse.

"The programme we will be operating enables us to go out and hire some of the best local coaches.

"The club is changing direction to a degree, we are becoming an educator of young athletes."

Taking charge of the academy is Steve Peters, assisted on a full-time basis by Liam Parrington, who will focus on the BTEC programme with Daryl White.

"We are building for the next three to 10 years and need more talent coming through at the club," added the Robins' chairman.

"We don't want to be a club who goes out and pays silly money to sign the best players of the moment, we want to build players in-house.

"We are not a bog-standard non-league football club, we are a full-time club which is quite unique at our level.

"Our aim is to help players at all levels to improve and take their skills to a new level, even higher than they ever imagined they were capable of achieving. The club will offer them a great incentive to further their careers.

"I would love to see some of those boys move up to a professional club or even to the National League.

"We are here to produce players that can push on to the highest level.

"Hopefully, many will stay at Bracknell Town because they see us a great and well-run club.

"At the same time, we want to see our Academy get respect throughout the game and that can be achieved by producing top-quality players."