Youth football expert runs 'loan scheme' for Kinetic Academy starlets

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 Kinetic Academy has done a lot of good for youth football in South London but things are getting even bigger for the 2022-23 season.

The foundation, founded by Sevenoaks manager Harry Hudson in 2011, has seen 60 of its players earn a professional contract with the latest being Jake Tones who recently joined Sutton United in League Two.

A big part of a player’s learning curve within Kinetic is going out on loan to non-league clubs across London and surrounding areas which is something Joe Aribo also did before he joined Charlton Athletic.

Hudson has previously overseen a very informal process of sending players to certain clubs but for the 2022-23 campaign, there will be a much more structured scheme for the youngsters to follow.

“We’re running a loan scheme for want of a better term this year,” Hudson said exclusively to The Football Wonderkids. “We normally do it quite informally and place our young players in non-league first teams.

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“But we’re doing things a little bit more officially this year. Obviously, our partner clubs come first in Corinthian Casuals and Woodford Town and they get first dibs on our young players for their first team.

“After that, we are still trying to place players at various levels of the game and we’ll probably have 25 boys playing senior first team football across the non-league pyramid come the start of the season.

“That’s another good way to supplement their development with us as they try and go towards professional football as well.”

Kinetic will also team up with the Corinthian Casuals to field a team in the Under-19 Alliance National League as well as the FA Youth Cup.

In other Kinetic Academy news, Hudson explained the unusual conundrum his charity has to consider at almost every single moment of the season.