Tuesday evening saw four teenagers start our Southern League Central game away against Leamington with Harvey Portman making his 8th start of the season at centre back, our Solihull Moors loanee Joe Shambrook maintained his 100% appearance record in the league, Jack Fletcher put in another battling midfield display and Alfie Steward took his opportunity to impress in his first league start when he opened the scoring inside four minutes!

It’s no surprise that our players are taking their chances when given to them by our first team staff thanks to the tireless work put in throughout the club from the junior section, U18s, U21s, Youth Team and Darryl Knight’s academy side.

Across the management teams of these sides, the amount of hours put in to ensure our players are ready to make the next steps in their careers is immense so seeing so much success within the pathway is a credit to them and their dedication to both their players and the club.

Having Darryl both as a player coach for the first team and manager of our academy side has also proved pivotal with several of his squad invited to train with our first team and make appearances for our Stourbridge Standard side which is a key step between youth football and men's football for many of our talented young players.

With Stu Jessup as our director of youth football, we have also been able to create strong links with a number of local sides to give our players opportunities elsewhere in the non-league pyramid to gain game time in men's football. We have seen Le’Shae Brown, Kam Smith and Alfie Steward link up with Wolves Casuals after signing first team forms in the summer where they are gaining regular minutes in step 5 and this has paid off with Alfie coming back to make 4 impressive first team appearances.

We have also seen Fin Holmes link up with Boldmere St Micheals and Farid Mikidam join Lye Town after he scored that goal against Bromsgrove towards the end of last season. Kyri Kourouyianni also signed first team forms last night having impressed in several first team training sessions as well as when he's played for our other sides. Kyri will now be on a dual registration with Dudley Town after impressing the local side in recent training sessions.

Harry Lewis has been in and around the squad in the last few years after he impressed for the club in our junior and youth team sides as well as during his time on loan with Tividale last season. We have also recently seen Elliot Ball link up with fellow step 3 side Bromsgrove Sporting after coming through our pathway and appearing for our Stourbridge Standard side under Phil Clinton.

Whilst our players are out on dual registration, we remain in close contact with both the players and the clubs to track their progress and ensure they are getting the most out of their time on loan.

Speaking to Leon Broadhurst, he’s said how pleased he is with the players coming through the pathway. “I’m a strong believer that irrespective of how old they are, if they are good enough, I will always give them an opportunity to showcase their ability at step 3” he continued.

With the management team keen to promote home grown talent and trust younger players from both at the club and elsewhere, it's an exciting time to be a young player around the club. We hope to see more success stories in the near future with an extremely talented group of players coming through our sides such as our youth team who have made the first-round proper of the FA Youth Cup where they will test themselves against MK Dons at the WMG on Wednesday evening.