Blackburn Rovers academy work discussed at business club

The event gave businesses an opportunity to network as well as share their successes with fellow attendees.

Paul Gray, Head of academy operations, and Jordan McCann, Head of academy coaching, then delivered a presentation on the standards required to operate as one of the leading academies in English football.

The 3-1 win over Stoke City last weekend was the 666th consecutive game an academy graduate was involved in a first team game.

Will Purser, director at Icon Sports, and Blackburn Rovers Business Club member, said: “It was an interesting topic to hear from the academy about their recruitment and retention model.

“There are quite a lot of similarities to running a business and the academy covered a wide range of topics and you could see the correlations between business and sport work.

“The guest speakers spoke about young players dropping out of football and going into business.

"The skill sets that they pick up whilst they are at the academy are transferable going into their careers away from football.

“The opportunity to see behind the scenes at the academy and to get further insight into everything that goes on, it was good to see.” 

Jordan McCann, from Blackburn Rovers academy, added: “There was a couple of parts we discussed from an academy perspective. First and foremost, connecting with the community is very important.

“We have some outstanding young people who will end up working in the community and for local businesses. 

“We wanted to share best practice from our perspective and how businesses are getting that learning back. It is fantastic for us to share what we do but also get information about what works well for local businesses.

“It is crucial the academy links in with people from local industry and I had a few conversations with different people to see how they are operating in high performance.

"We are all working towards the same goals and trying to achieve success for our relevant companies.”