Oxford United Academy have made the addition of two new faces to the growing Staff, with Gerry McGinty joining as Transition Phase Lead (11-13) and Lee Collier becoming the Youth Development Phase Lead (14-16).
Gerry McGinty has worked in Academy Football for nearly eight years, starting off at Barnet before moving to Cheltenham for four years. He told us
“I have always worked within the youth development phase at each club, but at Oxford I’ve been offered the opportunity to work with slightly younger age groups than I have previously. I thought this was a great opportunity to challenge myself and to influence the development of younger players before they get into the youth development phase.
“My focus will be making sure the U11s to U13s are playing a variety of formats and focusing on their technical skills. Therefore, there will be some changes to the training sessions to ensure the players are receiving enough individual attention and are able to work on the areas that are important to their development. I also want the staff to have better knowledge of the players and who they are as people.”
Lee Collier joins the club as the Youth Development Phase Lead, joining the club having worked in the Lead Professional Development Phase Coach at Port Vale, the same role at MK Dons and between the two, First Team Coach at Weymouth in the National League.
Collier told us
“My role will be looking after the 14-17 age groups and helping them transition from the YDP to the PDP and designing a programme that’s going to help develop players individually. I’m here to help build the vision of what the academy wants to look like moving forward now Stevie has come into the building as Academy Manager and with Nick Adkins as head of coaching, it’s great.”
“From my experiences of sixteen years working in the professional game as a coach, hopefully I can bring what I’ve learnt along the way and help grow that phase of the academy.”