Good afternoon everybody and welcome back to Carrow Road for today's match against Doncaster Rovers.

This week our current under-16 goalkeeper Jed Steer travelled to Tenerife to represent England under-17s in the qualifying stages of the UEFA under-17 European Championships.

Two of Jed's colleagues here at the Academy have already qualified for the next stage of the tournament, Dario Dumic and his Danish team-mates qualified last month along with Josh Dawkin and his Welsh counterparts.

Jed and his team will take part in three group matches, with the two top teams progressing through to the next stage of the tournament. Their first fixture was due to be played on Wednesday, October 22 against Armenia, at the time of writing the result was unknown, but Jed and his team-mates would no doubt be looking to start with a good performance and a positive result.

Their second game will be against Estonia on Friday, October 24, before arguably their toughest fixture against Spain on Monday, October 27.

The next phase of the tournament is the Elite Stage which will take place in early Spring 2009 and Jed will be hoping he can join Dario and Josh in the draw for that stage of the tournament.

International recognition for our Academy players is something we hold in very high regard and we are extremely proud of. The fact that this year alone we have seven players representing various schoolboy international squads is very pleasing and something we hope will continue into the future. To date this year the following players have received International recognition of some nature:

Declan Rudd - England U17

Jed Steer - England U17

Josh Dawkin - Wales U17 and U19

David Stephens - Wales U17 and U19

Matthew Ball - Northern Ireland U16 development squad

Danny Kelly - Republic of Ireland U19

Dario Dumic - Denmark U17

I would like to wish Jed and his team the best of luck for their forthcoming matches and I will report fully on Jed's performances and the results of the England under-17 squad in the next edition of the programme.

Enjoy the game.

Ricky Martin
Academy Manager