Frankie Bunn searching for new NUFC stars

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Frankie Bunn searching for new NUFC stars

 

 

INCOMING Newcastle United Academy coach Frankie Bunn has revealed the challenge to scour Tyneside for the next exciting Geordie star was just too good to turn down.

 

So often the region has been described as the hotbed of football and one of the best breeding grounds of local talent in the country.

 

Wor Jackie, Gazza, Lee Clark, Steve Watson and Andy Carroll, to name just a handful, are cast-iron proof of that.

 

Bunn – who played at Oldham Athletic during the halcyon Joe Royle era at Boundary Park – admits he cannot wait to get started.

 

His role as under-18 coach will see him work with Academy chief Joe Joyce and help move United’s hot prospects across the fields of Little Benton and up to the main Toon HQ.

 

Bunn told the Chronicle: “If you can unearth a little gem it can mean so much to a football club these days, especially given the financial situation in the game now.

 

“We are here to try to produce players for our first team at Newcastle United, first and foremost. If not, to have a career in football.

 

“It is a fantastic club – it is good to be here.

 

“Youth football is on the up again. Clubs are now realising, with their financial constraints, the youth department is quite important.

 

“The Academy system has improved facilities, not only for the first team but for the youth side as well.”

 

Bunn is delighted to be working on Tyneside and knows the type of talent which can be found on the playing fields of Tyneside and the surrounding North-East catchment area.

 

He added: “There are fantastic players around the area.

 

“Middlesbrough have had a good name along with Newcastle and Sunderland.”

 

United have given a respectable account of themselves in the FA Youth Cup in the last two years, reaching the last four of the competition last term and only being edged out by Manchester United in the fifth round away from home this year.

 

Consequently, young guns like Amble hotshot Phil Airey and fellow Geordie Paul Dummett have found themselves on the fringes of the first-team pool.

 

Bunn said: “Everybody talks about the FA Youth Cup. It is a great competition.

 

“The boys love it, but it is not the be-all and end-all. It is how they develop through the ranks from schoolboy to youth team to reserves.”

 

Bunn’s role at United is part of a direct link to the Magpies’ development pool looked after by his old Oldham coach Willie Donachie and United legend Peter Beardsley.

 

He added: “We are always passing players up to them, so there are good links.

 

“There is a real pathway for them.”

 

Is this the fucker out of Viz, with his gingerbread sex dolls?