“My dad put very little pressure on me to play for Man United,” he says. “He just said, ‘you enjoy it, you have a good time, I’ll take you three or four times a week, no problem – my time is your time’. A lot of parents are – as every father and mother are – always super invested in how their child is getting on but sometimes you have to leave things to the experts. They’ve seen every case multiple times over and they know how to manage situations like that.”
While McTominay urged parents to follow his dad’s example, not every player will have such supportive parents or guardians, and the Academy is aware of that. The offering of psychological support has grown greatly in the last decade and there’s a constant awareness that the Academy has to be welcoming and a safe space. “Some of our players have got great support networks away from here,” Cox says. “But the beauty of football is it takes boys and girls from all corners of society and some might not have positive role models in their lives.
“When they come here, they’re doing something they love, they’ve got purpose, they might have a role model – a coach, a member of staff or an older player – and they have some discipline, structure and boundaries. We want to teach them to be great footballers, but also to take ownership for their own learning, to be accountable for their own behaviours and to be set up for life. We want good people because we think it underpins great performance.”
