It has been another successful year for Aberdeen FC’s Youth Academy with an additional four Academy graduates making their first team debuts to add to the seven existing graduate members in the first team. Head of Youth Recruitment, Jim Fraser, spoke to RedTV about the current youth scouting set up and the progression which has taken place in recent years.

Jim’s career in youth football started around twenty years ago where he coached a local boys club for the best part of ten years in the Aberdeen juvenile leagues. During this time Jim linked up with his now good friend Malcolm Thomson who worked with Alex McLeish. This led to Jim doing some work on behalf of Motherwell and Hibernian at the time and he states that “although ultimately I am a massive Aberdeen fan, I assisted in the setting up of the Rangers’ Soccer Academy” which lasted four years.

A further role as Head of Youth Development at Highland League outfit Keith proved to be a successful period for Jim as the club won 17 out of 19 trophies across a six year period which he remains proud of to this day. 

Now in charge of recruiting players in the age bracket of 7-17 and having been involved with Aberdeen for the previous ten years working under his predecessor Colin Grant, Jim already had a fruitful working relationship with Neil Simpson and Gavin Levey. Jim talked about the mass change in structure which has been implemented throughout the Academy recruitment system:

“I have a great respect for Colin as he put a lot of the processes in place which we still utilise today. Initially there were only two to three scouts covering the whole of the Grampian region, whereas we now have 14 scouts covering the North East of Scotland along with Ireland. Previously we had an Edinburgh and Glasgow centre, however roughly two years ago there was a conscious decision taken that a change to the Academy structure was required which led to the closures of the Glasgow and Edinburgh centres.

“Part of the reasoning for this was that during the time the centres were open we perhaps did not focus on the whole of the Grampian Region and potentially missed out on one or two players. We have now looked at the structure and geographical areas and employed scouts throughout the region to ensure that we give all youngsters the best opportunity to come along and represent AFC if they have the potential to do so.”

Jim had plenty praise for the work being done by local boys clubs with a number of them having experienced managers in the game. Furthermore Jim believes that the relationships being formed with the boys clubs are extremely important to the Youth Academy in the long term as the boys clubs are an extremely important part of developing a young footballer. 

Although the scouting department’s main focus is now predominantly on the North East of Scotland, Aberdeen now have a scouting presence overseas with a part-time scout now based in both Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. On this point Jim is quick to point out that every local boy is given the best opportunity right through to 16 years old and points to the recent success of late developer Sam Robertson who joined the U17s last season and has now featured on numerous occasions for the U20 side.

However, Jim acknowledges although he’d love to see a team full of Aberdonians, in the modern world of football there is a first team requirement and expectation that the players who are progressing through the academy will be able to step up to that level. This is the reasoning why the Irish scouts are attempting to identify international quality players to come over and compete for first team places. Jim demonstrates this by stating:

“If we are going to take players from elsewhere we want them to be of the very highest standard to compete with the good batch of local boys we currently have. We are proud to say that numerous players within our Academy have already represented Scotland in addition to a player who has captained Wales U15s. This is what we want to be repeating and the message we want to put out is that there are players out there from the North East who are capable of performing at the very highest level and we must identify them.”

One of Jim’s main priorities is getting players in as young as possible and he believes that the work which is done alongside boys clubs at this particular stage is very important. A festival season where the very best players from each region are invited to a trial in Aberdeen sees the top players progress to the ‘Advanced Centre’ which is a skills based programme run by Jim Crawford. This enables the players to improve their individual technique and skills prior to commencing as part of the AFC Youth Academy at U10 age level. Jim believes that “bringing the best players together as early as possible is the best way for the club to progress.”

When quizzed on what an AFC scout is on the look for, Jim refers to his club handbook which perfectly illustrates AFC's philosophy as the scouts look to identify “AFCA” Awareness, Football Mastery, Character & Athleticism. However Jim also adds that character is a huge part of what they are on the lookout for and that the very top players must have huge desire and drive to win and compete at the top. 

Jim’s 14 scouts are not the only people he relies upon, ‘network scouts’ and various other contacts all enable Jim to have as wide a network as possible which ensures that no players slip through the net. Jim has even went as far to say that “I even have janitors and groundsmen who keep an eye on players for me! We want to ensure that no player is missed and in order to achieve this we must keep our network as broad as is possible”.

A total of 11 AFC Youth Academy Graduates featured for the first team last season, four making their debuts. This is an excellent achievement for any club and Jim believes that the club are hitting their goals in terms of developing young players into first team squad members and can only see it continuing with many players throughout the Academy doing well both domestically and internationally. However Jim and his scouts will not be putting their feet up waiting for the current crop to make the grade, instead they will be out watching youth games no matter rain, snow or shine trying to find extra talent to add to the fold as Jim concluded by saying:

 “We are striving to find better players, who have the potential ability to go on and play for Aberdeen and Scotland. All the scouts as both fans and members of staff want the very best for Aberdeen Football Club and that is what we will continue to strive for.”