Sunderland under 18’s FA Youth Cup semi final exit is nothing to be scoffed at. The year has seen our greatest progression through the famed competition and is certainly a testament to Roy Keane, Ged McNamee, Kevin Ball’s and their coaching staff at the academy in recent months.

Within his first week at SAFC Roy Keane held a meeting with the entire youth team to tell them he would be putting an emphasis on the academy for the future and if they worked hard enough and were good enough they would get a chance with him. The academy is something past managers have ignored out of pressure for instant success, but not Keane. Here I’ll look at some of the players that took us there and will hopefully help the first team to great heights in the future.

After demolishing Norwich youths 6-1 in the third round of the Youth Cup with Martyn Waghorn bagging a hat-trick, we then went into a much tighter game against Macclesfield, Nathan Luscombe and Waghorn, again, the scorers in a 2-1 win. Liverpool, the favourites, was next at the SoL and two goals from Waghorn helped Sunderland to a fine 5-3 victory. It was Charlton up next who we managed to beat when with the game deadlocked; an injury time lob from Jordan Henderson took us through. It was Man City who stopped our run with a 2-0 defeat at the SoL then, despite winning the return fixture 1-0, Sunderland went out.

With fearsome strength, good close control and powerful running Martyn Waghorn is the closest thing SAFC have had to a home-grown wonder kid for years. Martyn made the grade at the Academy of Light, where he first came to the attention of Roy Keane after being “Years ahead of the other lads physically”. Since making his debut against Man Utd, this young starlet is looking to take the Premier League by storm.

Another youngster Jordan Henderson has come of age this year, showing a deft touch way beyond his years. With great set-pieces and finishing Jordan, who travelled with the squad to face Liverpool at Anfield, could be set to follow Waghorn into the first team frame. Youth team captain Jack Colback is another who is close to first team action. Jack also made the journey to Liverpool at the back of the bus with Henderson.

Young defender Conor Hourihane also got pulses racing, with Niall Quinn touting the lad as the best young player to come out of Ireland in years on his road show tour last year. It was also revealed in Quinn’s tour that Keane visited the youngster’s parents at their home to persuade him to join his revolution. Conor has represented Ireland at U15, U16 and U17 levels.

Consett born, Michael Kay has also shown promise. Involved heavily in the pre season fixtures, Michael went on to make the bench at Old Trafford and has been one touted by Keane whom he wouldn’t be afraid to throw in against the Premier League big boys.

Well done to all involved in the youth set up this season, we may be out of the cup but let’s keep in going for the good of the club and the future of SAFC.

Danny Gray