Club Announcement – Jason Bristow

The club announce today that Jason Bristow, the Club’s Academy Manager will be leaving his post shortly. Jason has been offered – and accepted – an excellent opportunity within the Eastleigh FC Scholarship Programme. Clearly, this is a step upwards for him and it is understandable that he would take this opportunity to elevate his status and influence in education and coaching.

The Club would like to place on record it’s sincere thanks to Jason for his excellent service and the progress he has made in developing our Academy and its success is a credit to him.

In the years that Jason has run our Academy he has overseen a progression of players into the first team environment and beyond, with the sale of Aaron Jarvis last summer being one of the highlights.

However, he will not be leaving the Club completely. He will continue to assist Terry Brown with the running of the first team for the remainder of this season. He will also be available to continue first team duties next season. We are delighted that he will remain involved with us.

We are looking to build on the good work done by Jason with the Academy and to integrate it more closely with our community programme as we prepare for the move to Winklebury.

Jason said ‘Just really to say that it’s been a privilege for me to see the Academy grow and go from strength to strength since it’s conception 5 years ago. It’s been great to see so many success stories, not only the footballing ones we all read about but the everyday successes where players come to us with little confidence but leave having grown not only as players but as people too. I’ve seen real special friendships formed because of players joining our club and this too is something we have prided ourselves on. I will always have such special memories of the players that have been involved in our Academy.

I now look at a different opportunity, and the first away from my home town club in almost 19 years with excitement and the chance to work closely with Richard Hill who was my manager when I was in Reading FC’s apprenticeship scheme. I would like to thank each and every player that has been involved in our Academy and look forward to seeing it develop even more.’

The club will announce in the next couple of weeks the structure of the Academy moving forward.

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