MAY LATEST EWE RAM TO BE CALLED UP TO ENGLAND SET UP

Derby County Ladies were buoyed this week by the news that forward Ellie May has been called up to attend the forthcoming England Under 17’s training camp. May (16 ) only recently broke into the first team, but soon came to the attention of the national set up on the back of scoring in three out of the five games that she has featured in.

In the summer the club made a number of changes to its academy team structure, as well as bringing in UEFA A Licence coach, Sam Griffiths as Director of Football, in a move aimed at building on an impressive youth development track record that also saw left back Megan Tinsley called up to national level the season before. According to Chief Executive, Duncan Gibb, May’s call up is an early indicator that things are moving in the right direction.

“ A strong academy that has the dynamic and expertise to deliver the players of the future, has to be the foundation of any football club. It’s something that we as a club have been ‘ good ‘ at for a number of years, however our aim going forwards is to be ‘ excellent ‘. To fully realise that ambition, we need to improve on the quality of those that come through, and for the age of these players to decrease. Ellie is 16 years of age and has not looked out of place when brought into the first team group, so that represents a good start.

Our intent longer term has to be to create an environment where this becomes regular occurrence and these players remain at the club, or if they do move on, then we benefit. You can see this happening with the men’s arm of the club, where in more recent years only Will Hughes has really come to the fore from the academy. Now all of a sudden Jonathon Mitchell is the clubs number two and being called up to the England set up, whilst Jamie Hanson and Max Lowe have been getting some serious game time within the first team group.