Stevenage will appoint Colin Reid to the role of Youth Manager. The 42 year old UEFA A Licence coach will start his new position next week and his first task will be to begin the process of selecting boys for the new U18 squad that will train on Tuesday and Friday evenings at Shephalbury.

Stevenage chairman Phil Wallace said “ Colin is a highly regarded youth coach, full of enthusiasm and ideas. He will be responsible for the coaching of our School of Excellence kids and will supervise a team of coaches on Friday evenings, as well as manage our U18 squad. It is our intention to provide the very highest standard of coaching to boys selected for our squads to give them every chance of making a career as a professional footballer”.

The club’s School of Excellence already has several hundreds boys from U7 to U16 in the squads. Phil Wallace said  “ The way we managed it before – with coaches hired and paid by us, but managed by AVC Sports, with our staff handling the admin – has worked up to this point and Robbie O’Keefe, working closely with our director Mick Every, deserves a lot of credit for getting us to where we are now. However, if we want to prepare the Club for the Football League, we must one day have our own Youth Manager, just as other professional clubs do. That day has now come.”    

Colin Reid already knows his way around the club having been appointed by Mark Stimson as Reserve team manager last season. He is a highly qualified youth coach with over 20 years Academy coaching experience at Orient, Charlton, Spurs and West Ham under his belt. Apart from his Academy coaching background, he is also a leading FA Coach Educator and spends some of his time training coaches for the FA.

He told Webnews “ I’m delighted to be back at Stevenage. I’ve coached a lot of top young players in my years as an Academy coach at Spurs and West Ham and I’m looking forward to working with the Stevenage lads. The Chairman has made it clear that the objective is to find the best players possible and provide them with the best coaching possible. That’s great by me. My love is being out there on the coaching pitch, making a difference to young players and I can’t wait to get started working for the Club”