Bradford (Park Avenue) boss wants to improve academy pathway

He is the new first-team boss, but will also play a significant part in developing the club’s academy alongside sporting director Tom McStravick.

Whitaker feels there needs to be a better bridge between the two than the one that currently exists at present, but otherwise, he likes what he sees so far down at Horsfall.

He told the T&A: “I’m confident I can fulfil all of the roles Avenue have given me.

“It’s essentially the exact same thing I was doing at Macclesfield FC from day one, except there, we were starting as nothing, being a phoenix club (following the sad demise of Macclesfield Town in 2020).

“At least there’s already a base here, and in terms of workload, I knew what it would entail when Avenue offered me the job.

“When I spoke to Tom, I said to him that me being full-time was the only way that it was going to work, and he was happy with that arrangement.”

Whitaker feels he has one main role to fulfil, beyond helping the first team escape relegation from the Northern Premier League Premier Division, with them falling back into the drop zone, after successive defeats to Bamber Bridge and Radcliffe, ahead of today’s New Year’s Day derby at home to Guiseley.

Danny Whitaker knows the importance the club have placed on the academy, and he intends to do everything he can to help improve it. (Image: Martin Taylor.)

The new Avenue boss, appointed by the club on December 20, said: “The first team is struggling a bit at the moment, but beneath that, you can see things are building nicely in our academy.

“We need to dial up that connection between the youth set-up and the firsts and have them more in sync and more of a pathway from the former to the latter, as it’s a bit detached at the minute.

“My job is to just bring the two together, and I’m confident in my skill set, with what I can bring, that I’m the person to do that.”