Glentoran Academy is delighted to welcome Gary McAlister back to the club after a short break in a lead coaching capacity within our senior end.
Gary stepped down from his role with the under 20s at the end of last season to concentrate on his role as County Down Junior Manager.
After a successful summer with the County Gary enjoyed a short spell back at his first club Derriaghy CCFC before being tempted back to the Oval where he will take on a lead coaching role between our under 15s, 16s and 18s.
This is a strategic role for the Academy as we continue to implement our 'Player Pathway Strategy' and Gary will play a key role in supporting the team managers at these age groups and lead dedicated specific coaching programmes with the players.
Gary's role will also encompass coaching sessions and match day duties with the u20s as well and he will seek to aid the promotion of younger players into the u20 set up.
Gary stated ‘I’m delighted to be back at Glentoran and when the offer came to return in this capacity, it was too much to turn down. We have a proud tradition of producing great young players at this club and this role provides me with a great opportunity to help facilitate that.’
‘Our key aim is to develop great players within great teams. We have seen a lot of team success across these age groups in recent seasons and we want to turn this into players for our u20s and ultimately our first team. My aim will be to support the management and coaching teams we have in place as well as to tie our senior age groups together and to implement our new 5 year strategy. I can’t wait to get started!’
We still have opportunities available within our senior sides for any young players out there looking for an opportunity to progress in our system due to pushing a lot of players up through age groups we have a limited number of places available at under 16 and 18 and hope to add another couple of quality players over the coming weeks.