‘ David Hughes ‘

Current Head of Academy David Hughes has moved on from the role, so will not be here for the start of the new season following 18 months as head of the Cardiff City Academy.

David Hughes has found himself a new job.



So Cardiff City are now looking for a new Academy manager:








9th November 2021


Head of Cardiff City Academy:

Cardiff City FC is very pleased to announce the appointment of former Bluebirds defender David Hughes as Academy Head of Coaching.

David’s remit at Cardiff City FC will be to oversee our entire Academy coaching department, lead on coach and player development across all age groups from U9 to U23 and work with first team staff to ensure a smooth transition for players through the Academy and into the first team environment.

Whilst refining current playing and coaching styles, David will be entrusted with aligning all age groups within the Academy to create consistency in play and progression across the three phases of Academy development. His most recent post was as Southampton’s Head of Academy Player Development, having held similar key roles in youth development at Watford, Aston Villa and with the Football Association of Wales.

Speaking in an interview that you can watch in full on Cardiff City TV, David said: “I’m really excited and pleased to be here; this is a very exciting opportunity, because Cardiff City Football Club has an important place in my heart. I started my coaching journey here over 15 years ago, so to come back having learned from other organisations and talented individuals is fantastic.

You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.

Craig Bellamy was the manager of the Academy before Hughes and was the person to revamp it from top to bottom and brought the best players through and was fantastic and picking the best and brutal in getting rid of a lot of players that were there but had No chance of making it.

Sadly he was treated awful by the regime and will not return whilst current board are here and is now Burnley’s assistant manager.

You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.

No one can say Morison has not been given total control of new players coming in, revamped the first team, removed all back room staff including goal coach, now a good head of academy coach gone. For a manager like Morison with very little experience to be able to do this, let’s prey it all pays of or we will be in deep deep shit

All I can say is one hell of a gamble.

Reply Twitter:

You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.

Reply Twitter:

No one can say Morison has not been given total control of new players coming in, revamped the first team, removed all back room staff including goal coach, now a good head of academy coach gone. For a manager like Morison with very little experience to be able to do this, let’s prey it all pays of or we will be in deep deep shit

All I can say is one hell of a gamble.

Morison hasn't removed Hughes, Hughes has got another job, rumour is he's joining the fa, people leave to better themselves, we will no doubt replace him with better like what has hapoened in tbe past ,the academy has gone from strength to strength in the last 10 years and so it will continue to do .

No one can say Morison has not been given total control of new players coming in, revamped the first team, removed all back room staff including goal coach, now a good head of academy coach gone. For a manager like Morison with very little experience to be able to do this, let’s prey it all pays of or we will be in deep deep shit

All I can say is one hell of a gamble.

Morison hasn't removed Hughes, Hughes has got another job, rumour is he's joining the fa, people leave to better themselves, we will no doubt replace him with better like what has hapoened in tbe past ,the academy has gone from strength to strength in the last 10 years and so it will continue to do .

Mate who have we produced that has become a great player? A Premier player? or even a class Championship player?

You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.

The academy has certainly been heading in the right direction over the last few years.
Important to get this appointment right.

No one can say Morison has not been given total control of new players coming in, revamped the first team, removed all back room staff including goal coach, now a good head of academy coach gone. For a manager like Morison with very little experience to be able to do this, let’s prey it all pays of or we will be in deep deep shit

All I can say is one hell of a gamble.

Morison hasn't removed Hughes, Hughes has got another job, rumour is he's joining the fa, people leave to better themselves, we will no doubt replace him with better like what has hapoened in tbe past ,the academy has gone from strength to strength in the last 10 years and so it will continue to do .

Mate who have we produced that has become a great player? A Premier player? or even a class Championship player?

rabi montondo? Stolen from us .
There's plenty of potential in the current crop between 2005 to 2010 there was no accadmey as such you think the players breaking through now come in to the academy in-between 2010 to 2015 ,it takes time, tbf Sam done some good in the academy which Jones and risdale sold off but in the dave Jones days nothing really happened with investment in anything other than the 1st team . Hence the lull in players but the investment in the last 10 years is starting to pay off . The facilities are night and day compared to pre 2010

No one can say Morison has not been given total control of new players coming in, revamped the first team, removed all back room staff including goal coach, now a good head of academy coach gone. For a manager like Morison with very little experience to be able to do this, let’s prey it all pays of or we will be in deep deep shit

All I can say is one hell of a gamble.

Morison hasn't removed Hughes, Hughes has got another job, rumour is he's joining the fa, people leave to better themselves, we will no doubt replace him with better like what has hapoened in tbe past ,the academy has gone from strength to strength in the last 10 years and so it will continue to do .

Mate who have we produced that has become a great player? A Premier player? or even a class Championship player?

rabi montondo? Stolen from us .
There's plenty of potential in the current crop between 2005 to 2010 there was no accadmey as such you think the players breaking through now come in to the academy in-between 2010 to 2015 ,it takes time, tbf Sam done some good in the academy which Jones and risdale sold off but in the dave Jones days nothing really happened with investment in anything other than the 1st team . Hence the lull in players but the investment in the last 10 years is starting to pay off . The facilities are night and day compared to pre 2010

Mate, do you mean Rabbi Matondo?
Who did he actually play for in the Premier or Championship?
Yes Stoke on loan ten games and Manchester City?
Any others?

City produced Colwill , Davies , Evans , Bowen , Brown , Sang and Ratcliffe

No one can say Morison has not been given total control of new players coming in, revamped the first team, removed all back room staff including goal coach, now a good head of academy coach gone. For a manager like Morison with very little experience to be able to do this, let’s prey it all pays of or we will be in deep deep shit

All I can say is one hell of a gamble.

Morison hasn't removed Hughes, Hughes has got another job, rumour is he's joining the fa, people leave to better themselves, we will no doubt replace him with better like what has hapoened in tbe past ,the academy has gone from strength to strength in the last 10 years and so it will continue to do .

Mate who have we produced that has become a great player? A Premier player? or even a class Championship player?

rabi montondo? Stolen from us .
There's plenty of potential in the current crop between 2005 to 2010 there was no accadmey as such you think the players breaking through now come in to the academy in-between 2010 to 2015 ,it takes time, tbf Sam done some good in the academy which Jones and risdale sold off but in the dave Jones days nothing really happened with investment in anything other than the 1st team . Hence the lull in players but the investment in the last 10 years is starting to pay off . The facilities are night and day compared to pre 2010

Mate, do you mean Rabbi Matondo?
Who did he actually play for in the Premier or Championship?
Yes Stoke on loan ten games and Manchester City?
Any others?

Motondo could of been a star for us .have you listen to anything I said ? It takes time for players to come through we are thankfully seeing that now .

No one can say Morison has not been given total control of new players coming in, revamped the first team, removed all back room staff including goal coach, now a good head of academy coach gone. For a manager like Morison with very little experience to be able to do this, let’s prey it all pays of or we will be in deep deep shit

All I can say is one hell of a gamble.

Morison hasn't removed Hughes, Hughes has got another job, rumour is he's joining the fa, people leave to better themselves, we will no doubt replace him with better like what has hapoened in tbe past ,the academy has gone from strength to strength in the last 10 years and so it will continue to do .

Mate who have we produced that has become a great player? A Premier player? or even a class Championship player?

rabi montondo? Stolen from us .
There's plenty of potential in the current crop between 2005 to 2010 there was no accadmey as such you think the players breaking through now come in to the academy in-between 2010 to 2015 ,it takes time, tbf Sam done some good in the academy which Jones and risdale sold off but in the dave Jones days nothing really happened with investment in anything other than the 1st team . Hence the lull in players but the investment in the last 10 years is starting to pay off . The facilities are night and day compared to pre 2010

Mate, do you mean Rabbi Matondo?
Who did he actually play for in the Premier or Championship?
Yes Stoke on loan ten games and Manchester City?
Any others?

Also matondo played in Belgiums and Germany s top divisions .

No one can say Morison has not been given total control of new players coming in, revamped the first team, removed all back room staff including goal coach, now a good head of academy coach gone. For a manager like Morison with very little experience to be able to do this, let’s prey it all pays of or we will be in deep deep shit

All I can say is one hell of a gamble.

Morison hasn't removed Hughes, Hughes has got another job, rumour is he's joining the fa, people leave to better themselves, we will no doubt replace him with better like what has hapoened in tbe past ,the academy has gone from strength to strength in the last 10 years and so it will continue to do .

Mate who have we produced that has become a great player? A Premier player? or even a class Championship player?

rabi montondo? Stolen from us .
There's plenty of potential in the current crop between 2005 to 2010 there was no accadmey as such you think the players breaking through now come in to the academy in-between 2010 to 2015 ,it takes time, tbf Sam done some good in the academy which Jones and risdale sold off but in the dave Jones days nothing really happened with investment in anything other than the 1st team . Hence the lull in players but the investment in the last 10 years is starting to pay off . The facilities are night and day compared to pre 2010

Mate, do you mean Rabbi Matondo?
Who did he actually play for in the Premier or Championship?
Yes Stoke on loan ten games and Manchester City?
Any others?

Also matondo played in Belgiums and Germany s top divisions .

That’s it then,got to say wow pow,did we make much on him, how did he do in the Premier. So it’s Scotland next.
Any others?

City produced Colwill , Davies , Evans , Bowen , Brown , Sang and Ratcliffe

Are you having a giraffe
Maybe Colwill as Welsh International and looks good, Morison don’t really rate him?

No one can say Morison has not been given total control of new players coming in, revamped the first team, removed all back room staff including goal coach, now a good head of academy coach gone. For a manager like Morison with very little experience to be able to do this, let’s prey it all pays of or we will be in deep deep shit

All I can say is one hell of a gamble.

Morison hasn't removed Hughes, Hughes has got another job, rumour is he's joining the fa, people leave to better themselves, we will no doubt replace him with better like what has hapoened in tbe past ,the academy has gone from strength to strength in the last 10 years and so it will continue to do .

Mate who have we produced that has become a great player? A Premier player? or even a class Championship player?

rabi montondo? Stolen from us .
There's plenty of potential in the current crop between 2005 to 2010 there was no accadmey as such you think the players breaking through now come in to the academy in-between 2010 to 2015 ,it takes time, tbf Sam done some good in the academy which Jones and risdale sold off but in the dave Jones days nothing really happened with investment in anything other than the 1st team . Hence the lull in players but the investment in the last 10 years is starting to pay off . The facilities are night and day compared to pre 2010

Mate, do you mean Rabbi Matondo?
Who did he actually play for in the Premier or Championship?
Yes Stoke on loan ten games and Manchester City?
Any others?

Motondo could of been a star for us .have you listen to anything I said ? It takes time for players to come through we are thankfully seeing that now .

Who is he a star for then? If not for us.

No one can say Morison has not been given total control of new players coming in, revamped the first team, removed all back room staff including goal coach, now a good head of academy coach gone. For a manager like Morison with very little experience to be able to do this, let’s prey it all pays of or we will be in deep deep shit

All I can say is one hell of a gamble.

Morison hasn't removed Hughes, Hughes has got another job, rumour is he's joining the fa, people leave to better themselves, we will no doubt replace him with better like what has hapoened in tbe past ,the academy has gone from strength to strength in the last 10 years and so it will continue to do .

Mate who have we produced that has become a great player? A Premier player? or even a class Championship player?

rabi montondo? Stolen from us .
There's plenty of potential in the current crop between 2005 to 2010 there was no accadmey as such you think the players breaking through now come in to the academy in-between 2010 to 2015 ,it takes time, tbf Sam done some good in the academy which Jones and risdale sold off but in the dave Jones days nothing really happened with investment in anything other than the 1st team . Hence the lull in players but the investment in the last 10 years is starting to pay off . The facilities are night and day compared to pre 2010

Mate, do you mean Rabbi Matondo?
Who did he actually play for in the Premier or Championship?
Yes Stoke on loan ten games and Manchester City?
Any others?

Motondo could of been a star for us .have you listen to anything I said ? It takes time for players to come through we are thankfully seeing that now .

Who is he a star for then? If not for us.

For the teams he played for absolute ridiculous to say he couldn't of been a star for us ,he was a 11 million signing for SCHALKE your trying to split hairs now ,11 million city lost out on is my point and he was a academy product, we only got 500k for him .

No one can say Morison has not been given total control of new players coming in, revamped the first team, removed all back room staff including goal coach, now a good head of academy coach gone. For a manager like Morison with very little experience to be able to do this, let’s prey it all pays of or we will be in deep deep shit

All I can say is one hell of a gamble.

Morison hasn't removed Hughes, Hughes has got another job, rumour is he's joining the fa, people leave to better themselves, we will no doubt replace him with better like what has hapoened in tbe past ,the academy has gone from strength to strength in the last 10 years and so it will continue to do .

Mate who have we produced that has become a great player? A Premier player? or even a class Championship player?

rabi montondo? Stolen from us .
There's plenty of potential in the current crop between 2005 to 2010 there was no accadmey as such you think the players breaking through now come in to the academy in-between 2010 to 2015 ,it takes time, tbf Sam done some good in the academy which Jones and risdale sold off but in the dave Jones days nothing really happened with investment in anything other than the 1st team . Hence the lull in players but the investment in the last 10 years is starting to pay off . The facilities are night and day compared to pre 2010

Mate, do you mean Rabbi Matondo?
Who did he actually play for in the Premier or Championship?
Yes Stoke on loan ten games and Manchester City?
Any others?

Motondo could of been a star for us .have you listen to anything I said ? It takes time for players to come through we are thankfully seeing that now .

Who is he a star for then? If not for us.

For the teams he played for absolute ridiculous to say he couldn't of been a star for us ,he was a 11 million signing for SCHALKE your trying to split hairs now ,11 million city lost out on is my point and he was a academy product, we only got 500k for him .

As he is a star, mate your saying bad business by us. So he got away as then as they did not know we had a star and he should of been tied up.
Ok we have a star mate that got away. Next?

No one can say Morison has not been given total control of new players coming in, revamped the first team, removed all back room staff including goal coach, now a good head of academy coach gone. For a manager like Morison with very little experience to be able to do this, let’s prey it all pays of or we will be in deep deep shit

All I can say is one hell of a gamble.

Morison hasn't removed Hughes, Hughes has got another job, rumour is he's joining the fa, people leave to better themselves, we will no doubt replace him with better like what has hapoened in tbe past ,the academy has gone from strength to strength in the last 10 years and so it will continue to do .

Mate who have we produced that has become a great player? A Premier player? or even a class Championship player?

rabi montondo? Stolen from us .
There's plenty of potential in the current crop between 2005 to 2010 there was no accadmey as such you think the players breaking through now come in to the academy in-between 2010 to 2015 ,it takes time, tbf Sam done some good in the academy which Jones and risdale sold off but in the dave Jones days nothing really happened with investment in anything other than the 1st team . Hence the lull in players but the investment in the last 10 years is starting to pay off . The facilities are night and day compared to pre 2010

Mate, do you mean Rabbi Matondo?
Who did he actually play for in the Premier or Championship?
Yes Stoke on loan ten games and Manchester City?
Any others?

Motondo could of been a star for us .have you listen to anything I said ? It takes time for players to come through we are thankfully seeing that now .

Who is he a star for then? If not for us.

For the teams he played for absolute ridiculous to say he couldn't of been a star for us ,he was a 11 million signing for SCHALKE your trying to split hairs now ,11 million city lost out on is my point and he was a academy product, we only got 500k for him .

As he is a star, mate your saying bad business by us. So he got away as then as they did not know we had a star and he should of been tied up.
Ok we have a star mate that got away. Next?

Because Man City we’re a higher grade academy than ours you cannot stop the player leaving. In reality they got him cheap on a technicality. I’m not bigging him up as I’m not a fan of him tbh. But city could only receive a set figure as compensation,

No one can say Morison has not been given total control of new players coming in, revamped the first team, removed all back room staff including goal coach, now a good head of academy coach gone. For a manager like Morison with very little experience to be able to do this, let’s prey it all pays of or we will be in deep deep shit

All I can say is one hell of a gamble.

Morison hasn't removed Hughes, Hughes has got another job, rumour is he's joining the fa, people leave to better themselves, we will no doubt replace him with better like what has hapoened in tbe past ,the academy has gone from strength to strength in the last 10 years and so it will continue to do .

Mate who have we produced that has become a great player? A Premier player? or even a class Championship player?

rabi montondo? Stolen from us .
There's plenty of potential in the current crop between 2005 to 2010 there was no accadmey as such you think the players breaking through now come in to the academy in-between 2010 to 2015 ,it takes time, tbf Sam done some good in the academy which Jones and risdale sold off but in the dave Jones days nothing really happened with investment in anything other than the 1st team . Hence the lull in players but the investment in the last 10 years is starting to pay off . The facilities are night and day compared to pre 2010

Mate, do you mean Rabbi Matondo?
Who did he actually play for in the Premier or Championship?
Yes Stoke on loan ten games and Manchester City?
Any others?

Motondo could of been a star for us .have you listen to anything I said ? It takes time for players to come through we are thankfully seeing that now .

Who is he a star for then? If not for us.

For the teams he played for absolute ridiculous to say he couldn't of been a star for us ,he was a 11 million signing for SCHALKE your trying to split hairs now ,11 million city lost out on is my point and he was a academy product, we only got 500k for him .

As he is a star, mate your saying bad business by us. So he got away as then as they did not know we had a star and he should of been tied up.
Ok we have a star mate that got away. Next?

Because Man City we’re a higher grade academy than ours you cannot stop the player leaving. In reality they got him cheap on a technicality. I’m not bigging him up as I’m not a fan of him tbh. But city could only receive a set figure as compensation,

Cheers mate for the explanation and understanding. So he’s City’s biggest star for years, will follow his progress closely now.
That Wez though never named all these other successful players that have come through and made it to the Premier or become class Championship players. This season we might just get one or two to finally make it.
Academy though needs to be sorted now.

Where have I said that we have had successful players in the past that are playing in the Premier league now ,you were the one asking that ,like I've always said it takes time and due to the investment in the last decade , the current crop of players in the next few years could go on to good things in the championship or Premier league,also there is talent in every level of the academy currently, the academy seems to be in a good place and its the usual suspects with a agenda that can't see the drastic improvement there has been .ralls ,bagan,colwil ,Davies all started in the academy system ,some in there young days as kids ,some when they were older but all played there part in it .these players are championship players now and are hone grown !.

He as been with us 8 months , came here as a stop gap to be close to his wife Eleri Sion (while he looked for a better job) who works for BBC radio Wales.
Its not as if he as added anything to the academy in 8 months ,2 months of which where they haven't played a game !

Academy though needs to be sorted now.

That's not how it works mate. It takes time, at least five years for an academy to start turning out players that can make the grade. We made that transition when Bellers was here. We are going to start seeing that reward now.

Colewill and Bagan will be a part of the first team and play fairly regularly next season. Davies and possibly King too. That is a massive success to have four of our own involved in the first team squad.

Bring a couple through each season and you are looking at a successful academy.

Look at Southampton for example who are seen as having an excellent academy for a club of a similar size to us (albeit more succesful). Still for every Gateth Bale there is a couple if Bradley Wright-Phillips who are decent players but not quite stellar.

As someone else pointed out, the challenge we have is because we are a lower academy status than the big clubs when the star comes along, like Rabbi, we are screwed if a bigger club comes to poach them.

The solution to that is to cut the pathway from academy to first team, which we are doing.

We're actually making decent progress with the academy in my view.

Where have I said that we have had successful players in the past that are playing in the Premier league now ,you were the one asking that ,like I've always said it takes time and due to the investment in the last decade , the current crop of players in the next few years could go on to good things in the championship or Premier league,also there is talent in every level of the academy currently, the academy seems to be in a good place and its the usual suspects with a agenda that can't see the drastic improvement there has been .ralls ,bagan,colwil ,Davies all started in the academy system ,some in there young days as kids ,some when they were older but all played there part in it .these players are championship players now and are hone grown !.

Wez, while I agree with you pretty much in all of the above I always think Ralls is a bit of a red herring regarding the academy as he was signed for the under 23's and made the transition to first team in his first (or second?) season. Same as Kadeem Harris who sometimes gets referred to as our academy product.

Personally, I see the likes of Colewill, Davies, Ratcliffe, King etc as proper home grown talents and players like Ralls and more recently Sang who were developed elsewhere more a reflection of a decent eye for a player someone else didn't think could cut it.

But agree academy takes time and investment and the effort put in a few years back is now set to pay dividends