Jack Hinshelwood’s England glory is just the start – Brighton’s academy is thriving

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Jack Hinshelwood’s success with England at the European Under-21 Championship highlights a production line of local talent coming through Brighton & Hove Albion’s academy.

Hinshelwood and club colleague James Beadle were part of the team that defeated Germany 3-2 after extra time in the final of the tournament in Slovakia on Saturday evening.

While 20-year-old goalkeeper Beadle, a Londoner, was signed at age 17 from Charlton Athletic in the January 2022 transfer window, Hinshelwood was born in Worthing — four miles from where his journey began as an under-seven at Brighton’s training headquarters in Lancing.

Hinshelwood, primarily a central midfielder, was used at left-back and right-back during the Euros by England Under-21s head coach Lee Carsley. The 20-year-old has made spectacular progress over the last two seasons, first under Roberto De Zerbi and then his successor as head coach, Fabian Hurzeler.

Beadle and Hinshelwood both played a key role in England’s under-21 success (Charlie Crowhurst/Getty Images)

Brighton’s reputation for signing and developing young players from far-flung corners of the world has camouflaged the talent they have nurtured on their doorstep. Alongside the global recruitment operation, matchday squads in the Premier League last season featured five youngsters with bright futures who have come through the club’s academy HQ, the American Express Elite Performance Centre (AEEPC).

In the 84th minute of Brighton’s final home game of the season against Liverpool, Hinshelwood was part of a double substitution with his cousin Harry Howell, who became the club’s youngest Premier League player (at 17 years and 29 days old). Hinshelwood credited Howell — a versatile attacker who has represented England under-16s and under-17s — with a near-post run that helped created space for him to convert the winner a minute after the pair were introduced.

Six days later, Howell was part of Brighton’s bench in a league game for the fifth time of the season. Hinshelwood, back in the starting line-up in a more attacking role, scored twice in the second half of the closing 4-1 win away at Tottenham Hotspur.

Howell also started out at the age of seven at the AEEPC. Three other local lads have benefited from the high-tech training facility funded by owner-chairman Tony Bloom and opened in 2014, three years after Brighton opened their 32,000-seater Amex Stadium.

Harry Howell is Brighton’s youngest Premier League player (Mike Hewitt/Getty Images)

Charlie Tasker, a 19-year-old right-back with a strong work ethic who gets up and down the pitch, was an unused substitute in five of Brighton’s Premier League games in April before injuries affected his chances of further involvement. The three-year contract, which has the option of a further year, Tasker signed this month reflects his progress. Hurzeler told reporters before the home game against West Ham in April that Tasker, who joined the club as a six-year-old, “has all the values of this club” and “the physical basics and mindset to play in the Premier League”.

Joe Knight, also 19, was an unused substitute in three league games across January and March. A tenacious and gifted central midfielder with distinctive blonde hair, he can play in a deep-lying, box-to-box or attacking midfield role. Completing the set of homegrown academy youngsters is 17-year-old Freddie Simmonds, who made the bench for the 2-2 home draw against Leicester in April. The central defender is accomplished on the ball, and has captained England’s under-16s and under-17s.

“That’s great numbers,” says Mark Hendon, Brighton’s academy co-ordinator from 2005 to 2017, when reflecting on the number of local youngsters making an impact on Brighton’s first-team squad. “It has always been documented that there is not much talent in Sussex and not many players come through and make it.

“Added to Solly March and Lewis Dunk, all of a sudden you have seven players born and bred in Sussex around the first team.” Images on the walls at the AEEPC, proudly displaying the homegrown players who have made it all the way through the system, are taking up more space than ever before.

As recently as the 2020-21 season, only four out of 500 players in Premier League squads (0.8 per cent) were born in Sussex — Dunk, March, Brighton team-mate Adam Webster and Fulham midfielder Harrison Reid. Although Webster is from Chichester, he played for Portsmouth, Aldershot Town (on loan), Ipswich Town and Bristol City before signing for Brighton for £20million ($27m) in August 2019. Examples of players such as Reid and Webster slipping through the net or being lured by other clubs are increasingly rare.

Adam Webster made his name elsewhere before joining Brighton as a 24-year-old (Visionhaus/Getty Images)

First-team stalwarts Dunk, 33, and 30-year-old March pre-date the AEEPC and the Amex Stadium. When they came through, the task of identifying and developing young talent was run on a shoestring by Martin Hinshelwood, Jack’s great uncle. The senior squad prepared for matches in the lower divisions at Withdean Stadium — a converted athletics track — with training sessions at the University of Sussex, a stone’s throw from the Amex Stadium site. The under-18s trained and played matches at the university on pitches inferior to the 11 natural grass and artificial pitches at the pristine AAEPC.

Centres of excellence were run out of leisure centres in Worthing and Eastbourne on sand-based artificial pitches, with Martin Hinshelwood overseeing a skeleton staff and unpaid scouts. “There was no money, no resources, everyone was voluntary,” says Hendon, who initially worked for the club on a part-time basis. “They gave us a club coat and off we went scouting.”

Despite the limitations, midfielder Tommy Fraser and full-back Sam Rents several came through the system to make debuts in League One during the reign of former club midfielder Dean Wilkins between 2006 and 2008. Other locally bred talents familiar to Wilkins in his previous role as youth-team coach were blooded in the Championship by manager Mark McGhee from 2004 to 2006. They included central defenders Tommy Elphick and Joel Lynch, winger Dean Cox and striker Joe Gatting.

The hit rate was impressive in the circumstances, but the AEEPC was kickstarted a slicker, more forensic operation. David Burke, appointed head of football operations at the beginning of 2012, had experience of establishing academies in previous jobs at Fulham, Southampton and Manchester City. The club secured Category One academy status — the highest of four levels in England — in July 2014, four months before the AEEPC opened. “Everything changed overnight in terms of facilities and resources but also in structure,” says Hendon. “We could put a proper team together, pay them (full-time). We could cover everything locally and nationally.”

Mark Hendon was Brighton’s academy co-ordinator from 2005 to 2017 (Andy Naylor/The Athletic)

Contact time increased from training once a week and a game on a Sunday to three or four sessions per week. “All of a sudden, these kids were getting loads more hours, touches on the ball, and it ended up with these players coming right through,” Hendon says.

“It changed the perception. Everyone local then wanted to be at the local club. We set up five or six centres around Sussex, purely for pre-academy ages. We wanted to scout the raw talent early, then we invited them to three sessions at those centres. David (Burke) called it ‘systematic coverage’.

“We aimed to watch every player we could in Sussex — Saturday clubs, Sunday clubs, the schools, the districts, the counties. We didn’t miss anything. The seven- and eight-year-olds would be at their centres once a week, then train at the main centre, the best 10 or 12.

“We also held lots of mini tournaments at the training ground. David always used to say it was Tony’s ambition to bring a player through from the early days of the academy to the first team. That is the 10-year recruitment cycle we are talking about now.”

Tasker was in the under-nines when the AEEPC opened. “We were blown away,” says Tasker’s dad, Alan. “It was absolutely ‘wow’. Suddenly, they were in the training ground with amazing facilities. When kids are that age, they are almost too young to know what is going on. All they know is that they are enjoying playing football.

“At that point, it probably meant more for the parents. It was our dream for him to be scouted by Brighton, it was a dream for him to be signed. We’ve been to most of the training grounds in the countries over the years. It’s right up there. Other than Manchester City’s, I don’t think I have seen a better training ground.”

Charlie Tasker has been at Brighton since he was six (Andrew Redington/Getty Images)

Investing in the academy structure for monitoring and developing players has continued to expand over the years. Cameras installed on pitches allow analysts to sit inside and film matches, using a joystick to zoom in on passages of play and individual moments. Staffing has included interns working full-time on placements from the University of Chichester and youngsters on work experience at weekends to help with coverage of games.

Bloom’s ambition to see a product of the AEEPC go all the way through to the first team was fulfilled by Hinshelwood, who made his Premier League debut in May 2023, a month after his 18th birthday. It gathered pace last season with Howell, Tasker, Knight and Simmonds. The more Brighton establish themselves as a top-half Premier League club, the tougher it will get to rise all the way through the ranks, but there is a special connection between the player and fans when it happens.

Hendon, now an agent for Sporting Talent, says: “No one has got a crystal ball, so we don’t know if it is going to be replicated, but everything is in place to carry on. There is every chance that we could have the same conversation in 10 years and today’s under-sevens and under-eights will be making it.

(Top photos: Getty Images)

This news was originally published on this post .

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