Doncaster Rovers FC Tryouts & Club Guide: History, Stadium, Players, and More!
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Doncaster Rovers FC is an English professional football club based in Doncaster, South Yorkshire, England. The club competes in the EFL League Two, the fourth tier of English football.
Doncaster Rovers FC Youth Development System
Rovers’ mission is to attract, develop, motivate and retain the best natural talent in Doncaster by providing the best possible experience for young players.
There’s nothing better than cheering a local boy stepping on the pitch for his local team and the success of the academy can allow this to happen.
Their vision is to be the destination of choice for the best 8-18 year old footballers locally and regionally.
Doncaster Rovers FC recruits potential players and provide opportunity, through their technical, tactical, physical and psychological development programme.
The principals of the Academy are:
- Doncaster Rovers FC is a team, with one goal.
- Player development is everything.
- Doncaster Rovers FC challenges every player in their system.
- Learning is always fun and varied.
- Doncaster Rovers FC provides support for each player’s development.
- Standards are consistently high – putting demands on each other.
- Doncaster Rovers FC creates excellent people aswell as excellent footballers.
Doncaster Rovers FC Session structure
Doncaster Rovers FC Foundation Phase (9s-12s)
Session Structure – focuses: Learning to train. Learn the fundamentals, master the skills. Express creativity and become used to deliberate practice. Enjoy every minute!
Session Structure – outcomes: Love playing football. Become technically sound. Improve physicial movements and one-v-one skills. Adapt, learn, develop a ‘no fear’ attitude.
Doncaster Rovers FC Development Phase (13s-16s)
Session Structure – focuses: Learning to train. Transition to a bigger pitch size. Become competent in understanding and position. Improve understanding. Face problem solving scenarios. Learn movements and become aware of the space.
Session Structure – outcomes: Working in units. Transfer of skills to a bigger pitch and learn to appreciate and work within the additional space – including creating space on the pitch. Develop tactical understanding with time and opportunity to play. Decision making improves – particularly around passing.
Doncaster Rovers FC U18s
Session Structure – focuses: Training to win. Positive understanding of the game. Individuals becoming a team. Team principals, roles and responsibilities come to the forefront of training. Personal development continues.
Session Structure – outcomes: Focus on technical excellence. Become technically proficient and tactically efficient. Learn to become mentally strong and confident – build resilience. Cope with success and failure on the pitch.
Doncaster Rovers FC Youth Development Phase
The Development Phase covers players and teams between the Foundation Phase and the U18s (ages 13-16). This stage focuses on developing young players and working on the technical and tactical understanding of the game. More specifically they work on pitch size transition, positional understanding, problem-solving scenarios, learning movements and space awareness.
They will learn how to transfer skills to the bigger pitches, appreciate space on the grass, how to technically create space on the pitch, how to manage time and opportunity and working on their decisions to pass. Since the 2019/20 season, the Development Phase have been able to continually test their skills against some of the best Academies in the country with matches against the likes of Manchester City, Liverpool and Leicester City. In all matches, Rovers youngsters have always given themselves a fantastic account.
Once completing the Development Phase, the players will hope to be signed up to the U18s and become one step closer to the first-team. Rovers players are always showing that it is possible to go right through the age groups with both Reeves Boocock and Lirak Hasani making their League debuts in the 2018/19 season. Boocock joined Rovers at U9s while Hasani joined at U12s. Currently in the first-team set-up there is Louis Jones, Liam Ravenhill, Tavonga Kuleya and Bobby Faulkner who have all made their way through this age group and into the first-team.
Doncaster Rovers FC Youth Foundation Phase
The Foundation Phase covers the U9-U12 teams with the main focus of training on having fun, enjoying their football while mastering the fundamentals of the game. At this level, coaches and teams focus on mastering skills, learning deliberate practice, expressing creativity and enjoying the game. This is with the aim to make sure they are technically sound, have the physical movement, make them one-v-one solo artists, learn how to adapt and learn while playing with no fear.
At Foundation level, the teams will play regular friendly matches against other academies such as Scunthorpe, Rotherham and Burton Albion in order for all players to learn more about game play. As part of an extended games programme the Foundation Phase actively seeks friendly matches against category one and two Academies to help create varied challenging fixtures.
They will also have the option to attend football festival weekend and the Sheffield Trophy which focus on enjoyment of tournament football. In the 2018/19 season, the U12 team were given the opportunity to travel to Milan in order to continue their development. Leading into the 2019/20 season, teams from Florida, New York and Arizona have visited the Eco-Power Stadium as part of their tours to the UK. This provides fantastic experiences for their younger players to pit their wits against talents from overseas.
In the 2022/23 season Rovers introduced the Yorkshire Youth Champions League Cup competition which sees all Yorkshire Academies come together to play in a season-long competition in the format that takes inspiration from the UEFA Champions League. Since 2022, Rovers’ Foundation Phase has started to partake in Futsal competitions which adds an extra dimension to programme for players in the younger age groups.
Doncaster Rovers FC Recruitment Trials
their Academy recruitment net not only covers Doncaster and the surround regions but also stretches far and wide when looking for the best young talent for Doncaster Rovers.
Players are recruited nationally (for older age groups) through a number of avenues, these include recommendations from recruitment network, nominations from grassroots clubs, and other professional clubs.
Locally, Doncaster Rovers FC work very closely with the Doncaster Rovers Development Pathway to ensure players are regularly observed and given plenty of opportunity to progress. their scouts also attend grassroots games in the area, and welcome direct referrals from clubs.
As part of their recruitment process, players will be invited in for a trial and spend a period of eight weeks at the club. After this period, players are either signed into the Academy, are given the option to continue their development at the Doncaster Rovers Development Pathway or have the option to return to their club.
How to Get Scouted
Doncaster Rovers Academy recruitment staff attend many grassroots games throughout the season, however, Doncaster Rovers FC are aware that great talent can slip through the net. Therefore, if you think you are of the required standard, you can email the recruitment team with the following information:
- Full Name
- CV with the following – Age, Date of Birth, Position, height, contact details for parent / guardian (address, telephone number & email address), school, current club, previous clubs, representative sides played for, and professional club trials attended.
- Fixture list with kick-off times and venue
Rovers Academy recruitment team carefully access every application on a case by case basis before deciding whether to follow-up and send a member of the recruitment team to watch a game.
All player recommendations should be addressed to Kevan Wildes and sent to Kevan.wildes@clubdoncaster.co.uk
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