Paul Gaskin has been appointed as the club’s new Head of Academy Recruitment ahead of the new season.
Gaskin, who has previously worked as a scout for Derby County and coached in America, and his team will be responsible for finding local talent to join the Academy as the club look to produce the next generation of Burton Albion players.
Gaskin replaces previous Head of Academy Recruitment Paul Plant who stood down at the end of last season.
On his appointment, Gaskin said:
“I am really excited about stepping into the role, I have known Dan (Robinson) for a long time and he has got some really good ideas and the same sort of ethos that I have got so I am very excited about getting everything in place and building the scouting network.
“Our main goal is to have players come through and play in the first team. In terms of recruitment, it has always been quite a small team recruiting for the academy from one sort of area, so my initial focus is about getting out there, letting people know that the academy is about, raising the profile of the academy and getting people on the ground watching local football and bringing good quality players into the club.
“It is massively important (to develop local players). We are competing with category one academies in the area who have millions of pounds to spend on it. There are a lot of good players in the area who are currently playing grassroots football and are good enough to play in academies and it is just about finding them, it is so important to do that.
“The ethos of the club is about developing local talent.”
Academy Manager Dan Robinson on the appointment:
He said: “The recruitment department of our Academy is vital for the future of our club. To ensure we have the best local talent with us we first need to have a talent ID team out there watching players in the local area.
Through the hard work put in last season by Paul Plant, we now have a solid platform for Paul Gaskin to work from and continue to build strong links with our Burton Albion Community Trust who are so well entrenched in the local schools and clubs.”