Beveree Chat

The Academy will close and as a result Steve Bates will be leaving the club after 15 years. Seems strange timing considering we have a 3G pitch on the way, will be interesting to know the reasons behind this. https://x.com/stevennpl/status/20625982 ... JLl_yHWs2A

Josh2002 wrote: Thu Jun 04, 2026 7:15 pm The Academy will close and as a result Steve Bates will be leaving the club after 15 years. Seems strange timing considering we have a 3G pitch on the way, will be interesting to know the reasons behind this. https://x.com/stevennpl/status/20625982 ... JLl_yHWs2A

Wow, that's a significant development. Anyone able to shed any light on this? Funding cuts would be my guess...

A big surprise with no immediate explanation from the club. The recent 3G announcement mentioned the pitch would be available to a co-educational academy. This might mean Twickenham Prep who have previously shown interest in being involved with the 3G and maybe are involved in the funding?

Maybe installing the pitch would prevent the academy from using the club at the start of the next academic year. I believe they still used the clubhouse for the classroom which isn’t ideal. Maybe it’s the case of it’s closed down with the plan to relaunch it when the facilities have been put in place.

As noted above, the owner update included that "the current changes will transition Beveree Stadium from a matchday venue to a campus that is available to a co-educational academy, local youth teams, local schools and community groups". So perhaps it is going to be relaunched in a different form. How successful do folks think the previous setup was ?

The Academy is primarily there to give its pupils a good educational sports based qualification so its success should be measured by attainments standards and perhaps what is graduates go onto be it work or further education. If the lens is how many players did it produce for the club then the answer is not a huge number although some have played at lower levels of non league. Each year some academy players have been given games in the county cups or in substitute roles for the First XI but not many have commanded regular starts. I can only think of Imran Uche who has had come through the Academy in recent years to play regularly at Step 2 & 3. There may be others I am not aware of. We are competing for players within a very crowded academy football scene of pro clubs so perhaps unrealistic to expect a long conveyor belt of ready made first team talent.