Without the funds raised by a youth supporting volunteer group, Luton Town would not have developed James Justin through their ranks – that’s according to striker-turned-academy-coach Paul Benson who says the club is building on those efforts so they can start producing more top-class homegrown young Hatters like him.
The defender was sold to Leicester City two years ago in a multi-million pound deal and he’s continued his meteoric rise in the Premier League to such an impressive degree that he was tipped for an England call-up before a serious anterior cruciate ligament injury ended his campaign.
In a serendipitous twist of fate Justin made his Leicester bow by scoring against his hometown team in a 2019 Carabao Cup clash at Kenilworth Road where, three years earlier, he’d made his Town first-team debut as a teenager.
That came just days before it was revealed that Benson would be leaving Luton, having helped them win promotion back into the Football League and bagging 25 goals in 85 appearances.
But Justin’s introductory seven-minute substitute cameo in a 4-1 League Two end-of-season win over Exeter City might never have materialised at all after Luton were relegated to the non-league in 2009, seeing their youth funding slashed in half from £180,000 in League Two, before being reduced to nothing after two years in the Conference.
To illustrate this peril, Barnet and Benson’s former club Dagenham & Redbridge both scrapped their academies after dropping into the National League. And Southend United’s is in danger, after their relegation from the Football League was confirmed last month.
But, though the Hatters still had to contend with an exodus of young talent when the big club headhunters came for prospects like Cauley Woodrow (Fulham), the Dasilva brothers Jay, Cole and Rio (Chelsea), Tarum Dawkins and Charlie Patino (Arsenal), Dave Moli (Liverpool), Janoi Donacien (Tottenham), it was the 2008 formation of Supporters of Luton Youth Development – otherwise know as SoLYD – which helped to raise money to bridge the shortfall in youth development.
Speaking in Monday night’s Luton Town Supporters’ Trust Virtual Awards, while announcing the Young Player of the Season as Aiden Francis-Clarke, Benson explained how Luton’s Academy is now thriving as they’re starting to see signs of producing players that can make it into Nathan Jones’ first team, as Justin did five years ago, only now at Championship level.
“It’s important for people to realise that, perhaps without that investment that SoLYD have given the club – over £100,000 since they set up – I don’t think it’s too much to say that, without that, there wouldn’t have been a James Justin coming through at Luton Town,” said the professional development phase assistant coach, who has just finished his fourth year with the club’s youth ranks.
“He probably would’ve come through but it probably would’ve been at another club, because I don’t think Luton would’ve been able to have kept him and other players like him.
“The work that SoLYD have done to keep Luton’s academy alive has been fantastic and it should be held in high regard with the club and the community, because they work they’ve done has been immeasurable.”
Luton’s next aim is to transition the academy from its current Elite Player Performance Plan (EPPP) Category Three status to category two. This would allow their development team to compete in the Premier League’s under-23 games programme and improve their ability to produce and attract young talent, which is one of the ways the club can help secure its long-term future.
“It can be the difference in producing a player for the first team, or not producing a player for the first team,” Benson said of becoming a category two academy.
“Hopefully we can start getting some players across for Nathan to decide whether he brings them into his squad or not. That’s the goal, really, to keep producing players for Nathan and, hopefully, one or two might start appearing in match-day squads.”
Part of that puzzle is to build an indoor academy dome training facility, which is a requirement of a category two academy. It’s a feat which has so far met with short-sighted resistance from local Labour councillors who controversially voted in private to deny Luton a lease on land at Cutenhoe Road, despite recommendations from council officers to approve it, as they previously had a planning application.
However, club chairman David Wilkinson this week offered an optimistic view that the Hatters still hold out hope of resolving the issue, while enthusing about the current crop of development talent.
Benson said: “It’s slightly disappointing news that came out previously, with regards to the dome. It’s not a fundamental that the club goes category two, because they way it’s (the academy) being run at the moment, it’s almost being run on a category two model while a category three, which we currently are.
“I don’t think that will change, but we speak about the academy keeping up with the first team and it is important that at some stage the club does go into a category two academy to give ourselves the best opportunity going forwards.”
Regardless of the dome saga, the club has been investing in its youth set-up in recent seasons in a bid to re-establish the conveyor belt of producing top talent that the Hatters had been synonymous with, arguably up until the mid 2000s.
Benson said: “It’s always been, historically, an important part of the club, going right back to the players that have come thorough in the past and right up to the present day, with the most recent success story from the academy being James Justin, with how well the club have dealt with that and brought him through.
“It’s always had a place within the club, the academy. It’s thriving just as much as the first team are now.
“We’ve gone from, back in the Conference days, when there was a skeleton staff, to looking like we’re matching where the first team are going now.
“We’re building. It’s a slow build but we’re getting there. We’re starting to produce players that can, hopefully, grace the first team in the current level they’re playing at.
“It’s always a tough ask because you know how well the first team have done in recent seasons.
“We’ve always had to play catch-up, but we’re starting to show signs now of producing players who are capable of playing at the current level.
“It doesn’t get any easier. We speak about how the club has accelerated their (first team) development in the last few seasons, the academy will always try to play catch-up to that. And every year the demands get higher and the ability levels need to match that.
“So, it’s a constant, evolving thing we’re dealing with in the academy in trying to get players ready for the level that the first team are at.
“The players are adapting well. There’s always added demands that are placed on them every year, and that’s how it should be. Every year you should aim to be better than the year before and I think that’s the way we’re going.
“The players are responding to that and we’re starting to see some signs that, perhaps in the next two or three years, we can start to really see some players come through and make their mark in the first team environment.”
Jones, whose early coaching career included a year with Charlton Athletic’s Under-21s, has talked previously about the importance of Town developing their academy, believing that a category two status might have seen former starlets Max Aarons and Jamal Lewis stay at Luton instead of leaving to make their names at Norwich.
Speaking at the supporters’ trust ceremony, the Hatters boss said of youth development: “That’s always paramount in our thinking, in terms of the academy, because we’ve realised that Luton has had a real good tradition. Going back to the time when I played, people like Matthew Upson and Chris Willmott, people like that, were coming through that went on and have had fantastic careers, right through to James Justin.
“We’ve always known the importance and I’m a big believer of youth development and recruiting that way and really putting your stamp on certain individuals, so that they can be with you for a number of years. But they also realise the importance of being a Lutonian. And that’s really key. We want to get back to that.
“The trouble with the academy is that the first team has moved forward so quickly and up the levels, so to keep pace with that is very difficult.
“The pressures are up, the standards go up, the competition goes up and then you have to find youngsters who signed when the team was in League Two but they’re not making their way into a League Two team, they’re making their way into an established Championship side, which puts a lot of pressure on the academy.
“But, we are determined to keep improving. The next thing is to get a category two status. Once we do that it will give us a bigger platform, a better games programme, we’ll be able to recruit better and then to develop players quicker within the environment and that’s what we want.
“But there’s big emphasis on the academy here, there always has been, and all we’ve done that is continue that and re-emphasise the importance.
“But the future’s bright and we have a number in our group and the 16s and 18s who are competitive and an Under-23 group that’s been together, so we are moving forward.
“That’s a credit to the board, a credit to Gary Sweet (chief executive) and people that continually drive that on because it’s a big thing for a club.”
