Simla Youngs Football Academy

Monday, 29. June 2009 - Sanjay Kumar

IndianFootball.Com's Sanjay Kumar visited the Simla Youngs Football Academy to get to know the capital's premier football academy.

Delhi football is in doldrums and there isn’t just one reason to prove that. The most important and key reason is the lack of youth development programs in the capital. There is hardly any grassroot level program carried out either by the Delhi Soccer Association or by the prominent clubs of Delhi. To be honest, the Delhi league which lasts not more than two months can’t lift the standard of football in the capital unless and until their is an initiative taken in either of the two above mentioned points.

Without a doubt the best academy in the capital that is running their operation impressively since 2003 and now has become one of the premier football academies in India is the Simla Youngs Football Academy. The Academy was set up with a motive to provide a world class training centre to the children of Delhi and it has certainly come of age. “When we started the academy we had only 20 children but now we have more than 300 children who train with us,” says Tushar Dev, Technical Director of Simla Youngs FC. “There were more coaches than trainees in the initial stage but even 20 coaches are not sufficient enough today as the number of the trainees has gone to 300.” says one of the Under-10 coaches Manish Negi.

Better system and planning are the significant things to run a professional academy and that too when there is hardly any corporate support for grassroot football. “We have a revenue model and that’s why we are doing quite well in the present times. I believe, football runs on profit, and to sustain and achieve your long terms goals, proper planning is needed.’’ says Tushar Dev. “We are the first of our kind where we ask the children to pay the enrolment fees to learn the game. But we also give discounts and there is also provision for the underprivileged children who cannot afford their fees,” he further added.

To show the glamour what this game carries and why this game is the number one in the world; Simla Youngs for the last two years have been participating in the Welsh International Super Cup that is held in Aberystwyth every year. And they are ready to participate in different age groups (Under-10, U-13, U-15, and U-18) once again this year. Last year the performance of the boys was impressive and they were highly praised by their European counterparts. Tushar Dev is very optimistic and hopes to put up a better show this time around, he adds,’’ when we participated in 2007, we were beaten heavily by the European clubs but we never got discouraged and kept on rectifying the mistakes, putting the things on the right track and did an impressive job last year where we finished 5th, 6th and 7th in U-17, U-13 and U-10 age groups.’’ Apart from the Welsh Cup, the clubs takes part in the Yakult Danone Cup for Under-12 boys (finished third in 2008), in the Manchester United Premier Cup for Under-15 boys organised by the AIFF and several other tournaments to give their trainees a better exposure. Simla Youngs are also conducting U-10 and U-15 school leagues in the capital since 2001.

The recent age scandals within the India Under-16 national team has really hit the nation hard and the technical director is also not amused by this, Tushar Dev believes that this is only because others teams are cheating heavily on age. “This is not a new thing in India, hiding and cheating ages has become a common thing in India and teams are doing it heavily and the recent age scandals is a burning example of that,” said Tushar Dev. Asking about what Simla Youngs is doing to check this, he adds, “we follow Greulich- Pyle Criterion in order to determine the exact age and growth of the child.’’

The Simla Youngs FC Senior team on the other hand hasn’t been in the best of the form since their last Delhi Super Division title in 2005. The six-time Delhi Super Division champions haven’t impressed as they managed to finish sixth in the last Delhi Super Division League. Even Tushar thinks that the team didn’t perform to their ability last year and could have done better. “We should have rectified our mistake and could have lifted our performance last year which we are looking forward to put the things on correct line this year by building a balanced side.”
“To provide continuity to our coaching staff, I have decided to step into the shoe of head coach for the Senior Team,” he added further. Every year two U-17 boys are being promoted to the Senior team to give them a platform to access their own growth and development. The club too participated in the I-League 2 in the first round but was not able to make into the final round that was held at the Tau Devi Lal Stadium in Gurgaon.
Tushar firmly believes that it requires proper planning, system and a need to build a revenue model to run a professional Academy like Simla Youngs unlike the others clubs who have failed to sustain in the market. There are also some verbal commitments as far as sponsorship is concerned for the Simla Youngs which for the time being are put on hold due to economic crisis. Their current sponsors Spice Energy too have limited their sponsorship money due to the economic crisis but Tushar Dev is highly optimistic to rope in a new title sponsor for the senior team very soon.

The Revenue of the Academy is Rs 6 million (60 lakh) per annum while the cost of this year’s participation in the International Welsh Cup alone is Rs 8 million (80 lakh). The cost for the Senior team is around Rs 6 million (60 lakh).


Trainers and the Trainees

At present there are 20 coaches and 300 cadets in the training centre. Children from the age of 5 to 19 train in the Academy. Apart from the senior team, Simla Youngs have their own U-8, U-10, U-12, U-13, U-15, U-18 & U-19 teams.


Training Schedule

The training days are Monday; Wednesday and Friday. Tuesday and Thursday are the Elite training days - very precise & focused on individual skills.


Players who represented India on various age group teams

Sachin Kohli (India U-14, U-16), Disha Malhotra (India U-19)


The Greulich Pyle method entails matching the hands and wrist x-ray of a child as closely as possible with a series of standard x-ray plates, which correspond to successive level of skeletal maturity expressed as skeletal age (SA) at specific chronologic ages (CA). The method should be applied by rating the maturity level of each individual bone. Each bone is matched to standard plates in the atlas, and the one with the individual bone most closely coincides is noted. The SA of the standard plate is the assigned SA of the bone in question. The process is repeated for all the bones that are present in the hand and wrist, and the child’s SA is the median of the SA of each individually rated bone. (Source; Exercise and Sports Science Edited by William E. Garrett, JR. and Donald T. Kirkendall)