Former Crewe Alexandra and Leyton Orient boss Steve Davis is now under-18s head coach after spending a season with the Academy. The ex-Burnley defender initially came to the club at the start of the 2018/19 campaign in the role of Academy coach, helping assist Darren Ryan with the under-18s.
Ryan will continue at Wolves, working alongside Head of Academy Scott Sellars in leading elite player development across the Academy, as well as assisting Davis with the under-18 group on a day-to-day basis.
Sellars said: “Steve’s got huge experience as a manager at Crewe and Leyton Orient and as a development coach working with Academy football. He proved last season how much of a big help he was to us in the development of players, and we think he can continue moving us forward in this role.
“Darren’s fantastic with young players and has been very successful in his time at Wolves, playing a key role in the development of several players who have made it into the first-team, such as Morgan Gibbs-White.”
Previously head of coaching for the foundation phase, Jon Hunter-Barrett has been named head of coaching for all age groups from under-16s downwards after taking on the development phase from Marc Campbell, who has left the club to join the Premier League.
New coaches include former Wolves winger Mark Kennedy who has joined the Academy to support the professional phase, Wes Hughes has been appointed under-15s coach after joining from Birmingham City, and Adrian Ganchev is now under-13s coach having previously worked as under-12 assistant.
Several changes have been made to the Academy’s goalkeeping department, with Scott Fry being promoted to under-23s coach, Kristopher Dixon coming into the club from Bury as under-15 to under-18s coach, while Christopher Butler will take on the under-9s to under-14s.
Other new additions include Pauline Robertson as Head of Medical, Luke VanZyl as lead physio for the under-23s and Dan Benham as Academy operations manager. Lisa Hollis has been promoted to head of player care from professional phase administrator, with Matthew Stewart taking on that role.
Sellars added: “We’re very pleased to announce the new additions to the Academy backroom team, as well as deserved promotions for some very talented members of staff.
“Our new staff members have years of experience between them and we believe they will only make the Academy stronger going forwards.”
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