Abbey College Manchester Strengthens Football Offering
3rd February 25
Abbey College Manchester has bolstered its football programme by bringing in-house its Football Academy and appointing highly experienced coach and former semi-professional footballer Sam Launay as Head Coach.
Sam who has Level 2 FA badges in Goalkeeping and Outfield, started his football journey in Portugal, initially as a goalkeeper, and then at Brentford FC playing at the academy for 5 years. He then went on to play for Aldershot Town before going to University to study Sports Coaching. Sam has also coached at West Bromwich Albion across a 3-year period and has played semi-professional football at several clubs including Camberley Town, Littleton, Cheshunt and most recently London Colney.
Chris Randell, Principal at Abbey College Manchester states: “Over the last few years we have progressively strengthened the offering for our footballers, and are delighted to announce this latest landmark move. Sam has a strong passion for development. He enjoys coaching the technical and tactical elements of football and teaching players how to better understand the game and get the upper hand for the benefit of their team and individual performances. Sam is also avid about having fun and making sure players enjoy their football and have the freedom to express their creativity and abilities. “Our football academy offers professional football training for students up to three afternoons a week, allowing students to study for qualifications to enter university, alongside intensive football training which could lead to a career as a professional or semi-professional football in the future. Football training is added to students’ timetables for two hours, three afternoons a week. One of these sessions is usually a competitive match with a local club. We have a network of scouts and other pro-club coach contacts and also operate nutrition, strength and conditioning clinics.”
The Football Academy offers state-of-the-art facilities including a 3G pitch and video remote controlled multi-view video recording of each competitive match. This enables the Head Coach to conduct post-match video analysis with the squad.
To learn more about our football academy, please click here.
