Huw Jennings has hailed 2003/04 as the best season in the Saints Academy's six-year history.

The club's under-17s take on Blackburn Rovers at Staplewood in a play-off quarter-final after finishing top of their group this season.

And the under-19s play Arsenal in a play-off semi-final later this month after clinching their group last week.

"Results wise, this has been the most successful season since I've been here," said Jennings, who was Saints' education officer for three years before taking on the role of academy director three years ago.

"It's been tremendous to see the progress that we've made but it's been a massive team effort and is down to a number of staff, some of whom are no longer here.

"I'm delighted for the club because the board of directors have been very supportive. They could have been critical of the way things went in the early years, but they've been patient with us and our standards have risen to the point where we're setting the standard for others to follow."

The academy was launched in August 1998, a year after Rupert Lowe's arrival as chairman.

"Initially, the club was undecided about academy status when academies came in in 1998," added Jennings, who worked for Oxford United's Centre of Excellence before arriving on the south coast.

"The Premier League encouraged us to come on board because there were three clubs, including ourselves, who looked as though they weren't going to join up to the academy system.

"The club then decided that we'd better come in so it was a bit of a rush to put it mildly, and we weren't really ready.

"But once he'd made the commitment to go ahead, the chairman was very positive and has been fantastic to work for."

Gordon Strachan regularly invited the more advanced youngsters to train with the first team and Paul Sturrock has done the same.

Jennings added: "Paul Sturrock is very positive about young players. He blooded a number at Plymouth and knew about some of our players before he arrived.

"He even knew about an under-14 player that we'd expressed an interest in - he'd been to see Dexter Blackstock in a reserve game before he came here and he knew one or two of the others as well.

"He's seen the under-19s play twice and the under 17s once and already a number of the boys have been up to his training sessions."

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