WHEN chairman Stewart Day took the reins at Bury in the summer of 2013, he immediately set about re-starting the club’s production line of young talent.

Director Ian Kendall was installed as head of youth and charged with turning Day’s dreams into a reality.

Just 18 months down the line, the move is already bearing fruit, with results improving across the board, from under-9s right up to Ryan Kidd’s successful u18s side, who are top of the Football League Youth Alliance North West.

Kendall has overseen some major changes, from the way the club identifies and attracts top talent to installing groundbreaking techniques to develop those young players, both mentally and physically.

Among the initiatives is the “talking tactics” project, which is designed to give young academy hopefuls a genuine matchday experience.

“Before home games, we are bringing in many of the u12s upwards into the club so they can have exactly the same pre-match talk as the first team about the day's opponents," he said.

“They see the same DVD (about the opposition), they see how the first team is going to play.

“They have a pasta lunch and then they go up and watch the game then come back in at half time.

“The coaches ask: ‘Has it gone according to plan? Did it go how we said it was going to go? Who played well, who has not played so well? Who should we start changing round on the pitch?’

“They get exactly the same treatment as the first team get. Other people aren’t doing that and that is starting to make a difference.”

Bury’s production line starts with Jonathan Walsh, appointed last summer to help identify and attract young players.

Rather than setting up an extensive network of scouts, Walsh is developing links with local clubs to set up shadow squads, allowing Bury’s coaches to run the rule over prospective academy players for a number of weeks.

“Jonathan has got three teams playing in the Salford Leagues at u9s, u10s and u11s,” he said.

“Unlike Manchester City, who have got 47 scouts in Greater Manchester, we are looking to create more of a partnership with local clubs, trying to get other clubs to feed into us and let them play with our shadow academy squad.

“When they have done that, if they are good enough, then they will migrate into the academy.

“We want to have a good look at them first and then try to get the elite of the elite.”

Once within the Bury youth set-up, the main goal is to prepare them physically and mentally for first-team football, with diet and gym work playing a more important role in the process.

“The worry we have got is when we take an 18-year-old they are often not strong enough,” said Kendal.

“It is about building core strength and preventing injury.”