Although a Youth Training Scheme has existed at Exeter City Football Club for many years under the guidance of Mike Radford the 'Centre of Excellence' system began in 1998.

The Football Association, The FA Premier League and The Football League set up the Academy and Centre of Excellence system nation wide and Exeter City, along with the majority of Football League clubs, joined from the outset.

The vast majority of work required to meet Football League standards and begin a Centre of Excellence was done under the guidance of Julian Tagg and in 1998 we began running teams in the Under 12's, Under 13's, Under 14's and Under 15's age groups.

As the years have gone by we have expanded to now running all age groups from Under 9's up to Under 16's. Some of the players travel from as far a field as Newquay, Watchet and Frome to train twice a week and play matches against other professional clubs on a Sunday morning.

The Centre of Excellence exists to try and develop talented young local footballers from Exeter and the South West and produce players for Exeter City's first team. We also aim to maximise the potential of all those players who don't quite make the grade and develop them to be well-rounded individuals as well as good footballers.

Although the main focus of the first team at Exeter City is results the Centre of Excellence focuses on player development. It often surprises people that whilst we always set out win matches and coach competitiveness and determination to succeed, we do not deploy tactics and strategies that deflect from personal development in order to facilitate a Sunday morning victory. A win against another club may well reflect positively on the club but it does not fulfil our criteria of player development. Our aim and objective is for all individuals to improve all areas of performance with the ultimate achievement being a professional player.

With the best will in the world it is not possible to produce a team of 11 players who will get professional contracts and play for the first team, therefore the intention is always to produce successful players not successful teams.

As a Centre of Excellence we have a policy that players who are consistently performing well in their own age group are fast tracked to play a year above their own age group.

This gives a player an extra challenge but unfortunately weakens the team who have lost one of their good players to the age group above. Currently we have 4 or 5 boys in every age group who are playing a year above themselves, we believe that this system is the best way for us to develop players and we are not concerned with the negative impact that it may have on results.

Imagine any professional club in the country, be it Manchester United or Exeter City, putting 5 Under 18 players into their first team. Do you think that those young players would learn from the experience and develop? Probably. Do you think that team would still be as successful on the pitch? Probably not. So when you look at the results our Centre of Excellence achieves against other professional clubs, take into account our policy of 'development over results'.