Ben Chrisene<\/a>, who joined the club from Exeter City in August 2020, made five senior appearances for the Grecians last season and opened the scoring for Sean Verity\u2019s Under-18s by turning home a cutback from Arjan Raikhy in the opening stages of the game.<\/p>\n![\"Stand](\"http:\/\/www.avillafan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Chrisene-1.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Young converted a penalty soon after to make it 2-0, before Villa twice hit the post. Melkamu Frauendorf\u2019s volley deflected in off Seb Revan in the closing stages of the second half but Villa held firm to win the cup for the first time since beating Wayne Rooney\u2019s Everton in 2002.<\/p>\n
Lead PDP U18 Coach Verity has been at the club for 27 years in total. After starting off in the first six months or so as a volunteer helping out with coaching and getting his preliminary badge \u2013 which is now known as the UEFA B Licence \u2013 Verity has spent his whole professional coaching career at the club.<\/p>\n
He and Liam Bramley were proud men after seeing Villa lift the FA Youth Cup at Villa Park.<\/p>\n
A crowd of 4,600 spurred the side on, particularly as they held onto their 2-1 win, and Verity believes the run to victory will be invaluable as the players go forward in their careers.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cI\u2019m absolutely made up for the boys. I\u2019m lucky enough to have known some of them for a long time.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m immensely proud of the job we\u2019ve managed to do in some trying circumstances. I can\u2019t overstate how big a team effort it is.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cThey tell me there were only 5,000 people in here tonight \u2013 it sounded more like 55,000 to me.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe crowd was unbelievable and the lads will have felt that.\u201d<\/p>\n
How Aston Villa are planning to reproduce the likes of Jack, Vassell, Gabby and Barry<\/h3>\n
Having worked at Villa for some time, Verity joined an academy trying to get the most out of Darius Vassell and Lee Hendrie. Now, having also worked with Jack Grealish through his development years from the age of eight, Verity can identify what a top player looks like.<\/p>\n
Verity believes the club \u2018is going places\u2019 and has previously described a contrast from current to previous regimes, in how the club supports and champions its academy.<\/p>\n
While Verity has been preparing his youth team for U18 Premier League fixtures most weeks, he values competition and understands the benefits attached to FA Youth Cup football.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of them view this as a really important competition,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of excitement around and it\u2019s one of those competitions that gets the juices flowing.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese big stages are the ones that seem to get them going, especially in this competition as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s invaluable experience for what might happen in the future if they get to that point. That\u2019s the beauty of going through a couple of rounds \u2013 they get more and more of these experiences.\u201d<\/p>\n
Before Villa\u2019s 2-1 victory over Liverpool at Villa Park to claim silverware for the first time since the club won the Premier League Cup in 2018, Verity said: \u201cThe way they\u2019ve played football has been fantastic.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome of the attacking play has been breathtaking and we get to watch some of that on a daily basis..<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know what they\u2019re capable of and they probably haven\u2019t hit the heights yet. We all came away after the West Brom game \u2013 and if you win a Semi-Final it\u2019s fantastic \u2013 thinking that there was some more to give.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s exciting, but I\u2019m also extremely proud of how we\u2019ve played in this competition.\u201d<\/p>\n
Villa are going to great lengths to ensure they can equip their promising youngsters with the necessary tools to fulfil their frightening potentials. Plans to build an inner-city academy also speak volumes of Nassef Sawiris and Wes Edens\u2019 approach to academy operations.<\/p>\n
In a design statement, a spokesman for HB Architects said: \u201cThe club\u2019s focus through the city academy will have two primary aims; to assist Aston Villa in identifying talented local young players (male and female), and to provide access for the local community through the Aston Villa Foundation and partnership working with local junior football clubs.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe location of the city academy will ensure that young people in the city can access these new facilities easily within the urban area, with direct links available locally via public transport.<\/p>\n
\u201cBy providing the facility in the shadow of the main stadium, and also in an urban location that is easily accessible on foot, cycle and by public transport, there is a greater opportunity for those young people who may not have access or the support to travel the 12km to the Bodymoor Heath training ground facility.\u201d<\/p>\n
With strategies in place to invent exciting Villa\u2019s future, it\u2019s the likes of Barry, Kesler and Co. who\u2019ll be making full use of the club\u2019s investment in youth operations and earn their first-team breakthroughs under the stewardship of coaches who know a thing or two about developing local talent.<\/p>\n
Original Source: A Villa Fan<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Aston Villa\u2019s Under-18s won the FA Youth Cup for the first time in 19 years as the club\u2019s academy continues to turn heads across the country. Only Manchester United, Chelsea<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":51582,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/astonvilla.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48554"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/astonvilla.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/astonvilla.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/astonvilla.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/astonvilla.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48554"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/astonvilla.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48554\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48566,"href":"https:\/\/astonvilla.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48554\/revisions\/48566"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/astonvilla.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/astonvilla.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/astonvilla.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/astonvilla.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}