Stewart Castledine's son Leo is among a talented group
A crop of rising AFC Wimbledon footballers will celebrate joining the club’s academy by being presented to the crowd at half-time of Saturday’s Fleetwood match.
All seven have impressed enough at pre-academy level to be signed for AFC Wimbledon Under-9s next season and Academy Head of Coaching, Jeremy Sauer (pictured above), says their development shows the strides made at youth level by the club.
Flynn Bolton, Morgan Williams, Rufus Gordon-Smith, Callum Israel, Faren Vary, William Marchant. Young prospect Leo Castledine, son of former Dons player Stewart, is one of the seven players to officially join Wimbledon’s academy. The other six are as follows:
Adam Moriarty, Simon Ingrassia, Joe Roberts and Jeremy have put a great deal of time and effort into identifying these players at pre-academy level (Under-7s and Under-8s).
“This marks the continued success of Wimbledon’s academy in that we now identify talented boys at this age to hopefully become the next generation of players for the future. The academy is now more structured and we spend up to two years identifying significant talent using development centres, the club’s community scheme, and we have a really good relationship with local league managers. Jeremy said:
“The reputation we now have is a good one. The seven players all came through our pre-academy and we will identify five more players so that we can field two five-a-side teams next season in games against teams from category three professional clubs.”