March 31 2004

Terry Bullivant

Iain Dowie has initiated a shake-up of Crystal Palace's youth academy, by Joseph O'Shea.

A week after informing four senior academy players Gavin Heeroo, Tariq Nabil, Ben Surey, and James Gibson they are free to find other clubs, he has started addressing the structure and staffing of Palace's youth set up.

Dowie said: "It's not a nice thing to do, but I have sat down and told them face to face and they have been brilliant. A lot of them have got trials coming up and we will do what we can for them."

Palace currently lie bottom of the Under-19 league and third from bottom at Under-17 level, so Dowie has rung the changes, with former academy director Paul Holden and assistant Murray Jones leaving the club.

Former first team assistant Terry Bullivant takes over the Under-19s, Paul Holder takes over as assistant academy director for boys aged 9 to 16, while Tony Moss will oversee the education and welfare programmes.

Dowie said: "I want to make our academy as good as it can be. It's a case of changing things round. In the summer, we should be having every school kid in the borough who has got anything, into the club. This is Crystal Palace, a big club.

"It's not all about results. It's about bringing on kids. If you lose every game and bring through two kids that are good enough for the first team then that's job done. You want three or four through per year and you want one outstanding one if you can."

Palace's inspirational fitness guru John Harbin will contribute his expertise after years spent developing youngsters at the Queensland rugby league development centre.

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