Our under 18s get their league season underway this Friday afternoon when they face St. Mirren at New Western Park. The match kicks off at 2pm.
Head of Professional Programme James McPake has put together a new squad to compete in the new under 18 league and has put them through a tough pre-season ahead of the opener.
James told us, “It’s been great, we’ve had a mix of ages 15, 16, and 17 year olds. I wasn’t really sure what to expect, because I’ve never done pre-season as a coach so I used alot of contacts and asked how I should be doing it with these ages, to get them in best condition possible.
“To be fair everyone of them has embraced it. It will have been the hardest training they’ve ever done and a lot of them won’t have done full time training before. We’ve had young ones who are still in school and hardly missed a day.
“They have come in the day after school finished and been in every day. It got me excited seeing their commitment, I was hopeful getting these kids in that they would have right attitude and they have.
“I’ve been around first team players during pre-season for the last 17 years so it’s been a challenge for me to drop down and expect them to have same professionalism and work ethic but to a man they all been magnificent.”
The squad has been made up of Dundee Academy players from last year and a number of additions, asked how James went about putting the squad together he told us, “I knew exactly what I wanted over the summer when building the squad. I’m trying to develop as a coach and had ideas of my own and the ideas of the football club.
“I’ve had loads of help and advice from within and outwith the football club.
“A number from the 17s last year stayed on but we knew we had to add, and we’ve added quality. A lot of players have come in for us to have a look at. I like having a look with my own eye, I think it’s really important to do that. I’ve looked at everything, it’s about trying to get players into reserves then ultimately progress into the first team. We need to breed into them the need to win matches of course, but I’d like nothing more than seeing them get into first team. Finn Robertson, Lyall Cameron, Josh Mulligan and Max Anderson have all trained with first team in recent weeks.
“It’s great that the boys can see that they have the chance to move up and train with the first team if they perform. I need to get players who have the chance to play in the first team. Another example is Grant Rodger who we have signed from Dundee United recently. He’s been in for six weeks and impressed enough that Jimmy Boyle asked for him to play for the reserves during the week in a bounce game, a great reward for Grant’s hard work.”
The season kicks off today and James told us how much he is looking forward to getting underway, “I can’t wait, selfishly it’s giving me the wee buzz again. The last two seasons I’ve been injured and a bit gutted watching everyone getting ready and going out on the pitch, but this is a start of something for me rather than rehab over summer and back in again.
“I’m just hoping we can take the hard work and everything we’ve done so far and make it a successful season.”
The under 18s first home match is against Fife Elite FA next week, we’ll have details of date and venue when these have been confirmed.
We put the new under 18s through a crossbar challenge after training on Wednesday, you can watch this video in the freeview section of DeeTV – click here
