Former Frickley Athletic and Maltby Main manager Spencer Fearn expects the EV2 Sheffield & Hallamshire County Senior League to be an “excellent grounding” for his North of England Football Academy (NEFA) players.
NEFA is a leading education and football scholarship programme based in Rotherham and the organisation will field a side in the County Senior League (expected to be Division Two), provided they are voted in along with several new clubs at the league AGM on July 29th.
Fearn, NEFA’s academy manager, will be co-manage the County Senior side with Ben Nicholson – combining the job with their daytime roles of running NEFA’s under 19’s in the National League Alliance and ESFA Super League.
Playing in the County Senior will be a major step-up for the NEFA youngsters, but Fearn believes they have picked a great league for them to continue to develop.
‘The CSL is a very competitive league and very well run,” Fearn told Non League Yorkshire.
“There will be plenty of challenges ahead against some very good teams.
“We have seen the past year or so how many NCEL players have moved to the CSL, and the league is becoming stronger every year.
“When you look at some of the teams and players representing them, you could argue that some of the Premier Division sides would be comfortable playing a step or two higher.
“So, it is an excellent grounding for young players in my opinion, where we will have some really tough games.
“One of the failings of the Academy system is that players are not always prepared for the demands of men’s football.
“When they get released by a professional club and take their first steps into men’s football it can be too much for some of them.
“This move by NEFA is to prepare the players so that they can move further up the pyramid with some good experience of men’s football as success for us is when a player moves on to a higher placed team.
“The team will be a combination of current NEFA players up to the under 19 age group and we have a few more lads that are in their early 20’s now who were part of the initial NEFA groups, back in 2016.”
Fearn has managed in the County Senior before – very briefly alongside Mark Askwith at the Joker in 2015.
He moved onto Maltby and then Frickley, but he has always kept an eye on the County Senior for fresh talent and during the stint at Muglet Lane he picked out a hidden gem.
“One that stands out was Joe Austin who was playing for Handsworth Reserves. We signed him at Maltby and he has gone on to play 200 plus games for the Miners,” he said.
“He is club captain (of Maltby) and for several years has been one of the outstanding centre backs in the NCEL, and could have quite easily moved up a step or two.”
NEFA by was founded by Fearn and former Stockport County and Frickley chief executive Ryan McKnight in 2016 and and the company has gone from strength to strength ever since.
“NEFA is an education and football scholarship programme, where we develop lads on and off the field,” he said.
“We have had two of our graduates sign professional deals in the past 18 months, one in Northern Ireland and one in Gibraltar and several have played semi-professional (Non League).
“We all know the reality of making it as a professional, so our programme is designed to help players stay in the game as long as possible.
“For example, five of the eleven NEFA graduates for 2021 have now gone on to degrees in Coaching, which is what our programme is about.
“We also work on a variety of different projects within the game. For example NEFA head up the talent identification and coach development for Zimbabwe, where we identify eligible players in Europe for the national teams.
“All our Coaches have the UEFA A Licence and have worked in the professional game at senior or academy level so we aim to give the lads the best possible learning experience as they look to work in football or another sport.”
If you have enjoyed reading Non League Yorkshire over the past few months, please consider making a donation to the not-for-profit organisation NLY Community Sport which provides sport for children and adults with disabilities and learning difficulties. CLICK HERE to visit the JustGiving page. There is a video at the bottom of the page showing our work.
NLY Community Sport, run by James Grayson and Connor Rollinson, has always had combatting social isolation at the top of our objectives when running our Disability Football teams.
Our work is playing an important role in reintroducing our players, who have disabilities and learning difficulties, back into society.
We have six teams, a mixture of Junior and Adult teams – Nostell MW DFC, Pontefract Pirates, Selby Disability Football Club and the South Yorkshire Superheroes (Barnsley) – across Yorkshire.
We have enjoyed great success over the past three years. Several of our players have represented Mencap GB in Geneva, including Billy Hobson from Selby and Greg Smith, whose story is quite inspiring.
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Watch the video below to see highlights from our three years as an organisation. The video was produced for our players at the end of March to remind them of good memories from the last three years.
