LFE Online recently caught up with Chesterfield Youth Supremo Dave Bentley to discuss the clubs excellent record on ASE and as we found out Dave was quick to acknowledge the key role Chesterfield College have played in ensuring continued good results.
Dave Bentley, the Spireites Youth Development Manager states:
“We have a very good relationship with Chesterfield College and all our lads are made to feel extremely welcome here by all the college staff. Rob Kay and his staff at the Clowne Campus ensure that all the educational aspects are dealt with in a way that will encourage the lads to put in maximum effort to achieve qualifications that they can use later on in life.”
However, the link forged between club and college also has benefits on the pitch. The college have introduced a new state of the art fitness suite that the club’s Apprentices now make use of as part of their training regime (see pictures above and below) providing yet another benefit to the Spireites and the college.
Dave Bentley said,
“We make full use of the college’s new fitness suite and it’s an excellent facility where we can bring the lads to do some Cardiovascular work and get them on the free weights and weights machines to do some general conditioning and strength work.”
“The facility is a major plus for us as we don’t have equipment on site at the Recreation ground so it’s fantastic for the college to allow us to utilise this facility and further enhances our already close working relationship. In addition the college have also put a new sports hall in which is another excellent option for us and has allowed us this year to do a lot of our pre-season fitness testing at the college.”
(Below) Dave Bentley puts the lads through their paces.
Clowne Campus Manager, Rob Kay also spoke of the links between the club and college:
“I’ve been running the education programme for the lads now for a number of years in which time the relationship between the college and club has gone from strength to strength. We tailor the education programme for the lads to fit in with the club’s training programme.”
“We also run our own college academy side here and some of the lads are given the opportunity to play with the Chesterfield Youth team and that really only happens because we have such close links.”
