Bray Wanderers FC and St Josephs Boys are delighted to announce a new strategic club partnership between the two clubs. The partnership will come into effect from 1st February 2016 and will run for an initial period of 5 seasons.
Player Development is at the very core of the partnership and St Josephs Boys will assume full responsibility for the development of players from U17 and below whilst Bray Wanderers will continue to concentrate on the development of players from U19 upwards.
Both clubs will work closely together to formulate a player development philosophy that will see the very best young players progress through the programme with the ultimate objective of playing first team football with Bray Wanderers in years to come. This process has already started and a partnership development group has been established to ensure that player development will take place in a fully integrated manner.
Indeed Bray Wanderers and St Josephs Boys had for many years the most successful club partnership in Ireland which saw 67 players from St Josephs Boys play professional football for Bray Wanderers over a 10 year period including Eamon Zayed, Jay O’Shea, Dave Webster, Jake Kelly & Kieran Marty Waters.
“Both clubs are entering an exciting new era and we believe that, not only will the formation of this new and improved club partnership greatly benefit both clubs going forward for many years to come but most importantly it affords our best young players a complete player pathway into League of Ireland football and we look forward to working closely with Mick Cooke & his staff and Denis O’Connor and his board” commented Tommy Tallant – Chairman St Josephs Boys.
Denis O’Connor – Chairman Bray Wanderers, said of the new partnership, “we are delighted to announce this exciting new partnership with St Josephs Boys. They have a long and proud tradition of developing some of Ireland’s best young footballers and hopefully we will see many of those players progress to the first team in years to come and play a major part in what we believe will be a very successful period in our club’s proud history”.
