You have to work hard to get a congratulatory text from Glenn Hoddle. It took Sam Clucas five years, and Jordan Hugill had to wait seven to receive one after making his Premier League debut for West Ham.
The players were together a long way from Hull and east London in Andalucía at Hoddle’s academy in 2010 and plenty of moves later they are back together at Rotherham in the Championship. Clucas and Hugill were two of the 20 intake unwanted by professional clubs who moved to Spain to be coached by the former England manager and an impressive array of staff, including John Gorman, Dave Beasant and Graham Rix. The plan was to improve the youngsters and sell them on to fund the academy but after three years it was wound up.
Clucas spent his youth career at Leicester before being released and managed one first-team appearance at Lincoln only to suffer the same fate, leading him to think he would become a PE teacher. Hugill spent years trialling without success. By the summer of 2010, they were in the same sorry position when the opportunity to join up with Hoddle arose.
For Hugill it was his big chance, for Clucas his last. “People were there for different reasons but with the same goal,” Clucas says. “Everyone was at a different level; some were there because technically they were not good enough to play in the professional game, some weren’t tall enough, some were good enough but did not have the right attitude, some mentally could not handle football and were out there to improve.”
Their routes to the New York Stadium have been remarkably similar. Once the academy folded in 2011, Clucas and Hugill returned to England to join non-league Hereford and Whitby Town respectively, and worked their way up from there. Clucas had spells at Mansfield and Chesterfield on his way to the Premier League with Hull and Swansea, while Hugill notched up time with Port Vale and Preston, in addition to loans, before West Ham signed him in January 2018.
“I would put him in the category of not being technically great without being horrible,” Clucas says of Hugill when he first saw him play. “He was there to work on his technique to get into football. He had the size and mobility but technically he was not at the level required to push on. I know how hard he has had to work at his game away from home, his personal life and the dedication and sacrifices we have to make – nobody sees that unless they walk in the shoes we have.”
Leicester released Clucas at 16 because he was deemed too small but he soon had a growth spurt. It shows the fickle nature of academies, although 17 years on they are more sophisticated when it comes to size and other physical development features. Clucas worked in a Debenhams cafe and Hugill received jobseeker’s allowance before getting a job as a barman for a couple of years.
“It was ahead of its time,” Hugill says of the academy. “Nowadays a lot of these concepts offering last chances for players being released exist. We are talking about 15 years ago. It is a shame it is not still around. It was a good option. Without it, I don’t know where I would be.”
Clucas and Hugill are not alone in their success. Ikechi Anya played for Watford in the Premier League, and Alex Fisher, Mickey Demetriou and James Dayton, among others, had lengthy professional careers. A key element for the players’ development was the opportunity to play for Jerez Industrial in the Spanish fourth tier after Hoddle made an agreement with the club, which was struggling financially.
“It was just a bad business model,” Clucas says. “They were paying for 20 lads to live out in Spain, play and sponsor them. Realistically you are not going to get a lad going from the Glenn Hoddle Academy to sign for Manchester United for £50m to keep it afloat. Players were going into teams for free and they were hoping to profit further down the line, because you sign your image rights to them in the hope you end up getting a big move. By the time a lot of lads got moves, like me and Jord, it had already gone, so they missed the opportunity.”
Over his career, Clucas has gone for more than £20m in fees, and Hugill cost West Ham about £10m, showing there was plenty of logic in what Hoddle was aiming to do.
Hoddle took part in training on a daily basis and sometimes the naivety of youth would get the better of his scholars, who would try to show him up in passing drills by firing the ball at him to see whether he could control it. Needless to say, Hoddle would embarrass them with his touch despite being in his 50s.
“It got my confidence back playing professional football out there,” Clucas says of his time there. “I had been released after one game at Lincoln, so my confidence was down and I didn’t think I was going to make it. It is great for me and Jord to make it to the Premier League but it is great for the academy, too.”
Since joining forces at Rotherham, who play at Sheffield Wednesday on Sunday, there has been plenty of reminiscing about the academy. Many of those who were part of it stay in touch and there is talk of a golfing holiday but careers and children have got in the way.
Would Hugill be where he is today without the academy? “No chance,” he says. “It offered me the chance to have an education in football because leading up to that my experience was playing non-league games and being let go from clubs on trial. I never thought I would reach the Premier League and Championship. They gave me the tools to be the best player I could be.”
