AS A player Graham Branch was happy to play anywhere on the pitch and had no qualms about dropping down the divisions to prolong his career for as long as possible.

He just loved playing football - and that is a message he is determined to spread to today’s youngsters through the Football First Academy, the venture he has run with fellow ex-professional Mark Stalker for the past three years.

MORE TOP STORIES:

Branch has had his fill of the pro game for now, and he sees the enjoyment of just playing football being sapped from talented youngsters who are being approached by clubs ever earlier in their development.

The 43-year-old, who played 299 games for the Clarets, has made the decision to keep his 10-year-old son Leo out of a professional academy for now.

And at the Merseyside-based Football First Academy he hears his fair share of horror stories from parents, who he believes also have to take some of the blame for piling the pressure on their children.

“I’m having conversations weekly with parents saying my four-year-old boy is at a development centre with Liverpool or Everton and they’re talking about him moving off the ball and his technical stuff,” said Branch. “I’m walking away shaking my head.

Lancashire Telegraph:

“We all want our kids to be the next superstar but sometimes you’ve got to take a step back and think he’s a baby, he’s four or five, if he wants to be as good as he can then that’s up to him, but just lay off a little bit, let him enjoy being a child, kicking around on the grass with his mates.

“There’s so much pressure on the kids now it’s unbelievable, it’s all come from the parents and the parents need educating.

“Now Liverpool and Everton are taking on four and five-year-olds, so everyone else has to follow suit in case they miss out, it’s dictated by the bigger clubs and they suck them in and spit them out and that’s the nature of the game at the moment.”

The pressure being placed on children in academies is something that Burnley boss Sean Dyche has spoken about recently, and Branch believes the game needs more people to come round to Dyche’s way of thinking before the situation changes.

“That’s coming from an educated person, he knows what he is talking about because he’s doing really well in what he’s doing,” Branch said of Dyche.

“We need more people like him and until that changes we’re always going to have massive pressure on kids.

“The problem with having massive pressure on kids is that it stunts their development in a lot of cases, you get pressure off the parents and they put pressure on themselves because they want to keep their parents or their coaches happy. It’s just ridiculous.

“That’s why, at the moment, we don’t have any world class players.

“I think we need to look at how they do it abroad with the futsal, which is brilliant, and stuff like that will help us gain ground on our foreign counterparts.”

Branch says his own son has plenty of talent, and unlike his father he is sticking to one position for now, in the centre of midfield.

“I know the pitfalls of football and I know the pressure,” he said of keeping Leo away from the clutches of academies.

“I put him under enough pressure on a Saturday, he said he wants to be really, really good at football so we put stuff in place to practice.

“I feel that it’s very important for a nine-year-old to play football with his mate on a Saturday.

“I know the pressures with Jake (Mark Stalker’s son) at Tranmere when they were getting assessed and I could see it in his play.

“There are people who have been let go who were in our team and it hit them like a ton of bricks. I don’t want my boy going through that, I’d rather dictate his progression than allow someone else to do that.

“I know his game, I know what he needs to work on. He’s showing a lot of potential, he enjoys playing footy with his mates and that’s what being a kid is all about.

“There’s so much pressure put on kids nowadays it’s frightening, before you know it their childhood has gone, I just want him to enjoy his football as much as he can.”

The Football First Academy has already helped several five-to-12-year-olds move into professional academies, if that is what they want to do, but Branch says it is about far more than just helping talented youngsters make a career from the game.

“We do academy sessions but we also do sessions for people who want to get better at football and don’t want to be the last pick at school,” he said.

“We cater for everyone and I get more satisfaction from getting someone who is normally the last pick at school up to not being the last pick.”

Branch and Stalker were initially in charge of a boys team, the West Kirkby Panthers, who managed to go two years unbeaten in a competitive league on the Wirral.

As a result they were asked to do extra coaching, which is how the academy came about, and they have already had some success.

Despite that success Branch is determined not to get carried away with the academy, and he doesn’t see it growing bigger any time soon.

“There’s always potential to do a lot more, but we’re trying to keep it personal,” he said.

“We get on well with everyone, all the kids know our names, we know the kids names, and that’s the way I want it, I don’t want it going bigger really.”

And Branch is also happy with the level he is coaching at, with no plans to step up anytime soon.

“I coach 14-year-olds at the moment, I’m very happy with my niche in life, they’re all my little mates and I get on very well with them,” he said.

“I’m happy with what I’m doing. I’ve been asked to go into the professional game but it doesn’t appeal to me, there’s enough people there who know a hell of a lot more about coaching than I do.

“But I like what I’m doing and helping the little ones progress through their football, and I’m going to stay exactly where I am I think.”