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Youth football expert confident Kinetic can make history v Gillingham U18s
We’re delighted to welcome the founder of Kinetic Academy Harry Hudson as our exclusive columnist. Each week the youth football expert will be giving his views on the biggest talking points on wonderkids across the UK…
The FA Youth Cup is the pinnacle of youth football in England and the Kinetic Academy are looking to make history in the first round.
Harry Hudson founded the Kinetic foundation back in 2011 but as they are not a football club in the pyramid, they have to combine with existing non-league clubs to field teams in the competition.
In the 2022-23 competition, three Kinetic-affiliated teams were involved but only the Corinthian Casuals side remains as the first round proper kicks into gear.
It’s a tough assignment for the Kinetic-Corinthian Casuals side with a trip to League Two side Gillingham on 1 November but Hudson is hoping they can finally beat a professional side in the competition.
“It’s a really tough draw,” Hudson said exclusively to The Football Wonderkids. “Ideally, we would have been drawn against another non-league team.
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“But we like to compete and it’s what we’ve done in the past. We think we can compete at a category three level which Gillingham are and they’re quite strong this year.
“We’ve never actually beaten a professional club in the FA Youth Cup, we’ve got to the second and third rounds before but on the night of the FA Youth Cup is when clubs bring back all of their strongest players for that age group which always makes it a challenge for us.
“We’re quietly confident, though, and we think that the group is really strong this year but they’ve got to deal with playing the occasion at Priestfield with plenty of people there to watch but we beat Welling in the last round with about 600-700 people there and the atmosphere was hostile.
“They should be well prepared for it and we’re definitely looking forward to the game.”
In other Kinetic Academy news, the 64th graduate of the foundation is heading to another League Two side where the path to the first team should be in place.