Newcastle United will kickstart their preparations for the new Premier League season when they return to pre-season training on Monday.
Former Black Cats youngster Andrew Cartwright, who played alongside the likes of Lynden Gooch, Jordan Pickford and Duncan Watmore during his time at the Academy of Light, the bright lights of the Premier League remained out of reach. But the lessons he learnt working under the watch of Kevin Ball, Elliott Dickman and Robbie Stockdale have played an integral role in laying the foundations for a career in coaching.
Newcastle United's Jacob Murphy and Sean Longstaff with Jordan Watson, Andrew Cartwright and Ben Carr from North East Coaching Co (photo North East Coaching Co)placeholder image
Newcastle United's Jacob Murphy and Sean Longstaff with Jordan Watson, Andrew Cartwright and Ben Carr from North East Coaching Co (photo North East Coaching Co) | North East Coaching Co
Still only 30, Cartwright has forged a career in the North East non-league game after featuring for the likes of Blyth Spartans, North Shields and Ashington during the last decade - although he is now set to retire to focus on continuing his coaching journey with ACFC and North East Coaching, two companies he has set up in recent years.
Such is the growth of both of Cartwright’s companies, he is now providing coaching sessions to over 2,300 boys and girls on a weekly basis. For many, thoughts of playing in the Premier League will be a dream. But for two recent attendees of a ‘bespoke’ session, that dream is very much a reality as Cartwright and Carr put Magpies duo Murphy and Longstaff through their paces as they prepare to return to pre-season training with United next week.
Cartwright explained how he tailored the sessions to meet the needs of the individual players as they look ahead to a season that will see Eddie Howe’s side return to the Champions League for the second time in his managerial reign at St James Park.
He told The Gazette: “Matty Longstaff had seen us on TikTok and Sean and Matty have a younger brother who comes to our sessions and Matty asked us to do some sessions with him. From there, Sean touched base and said him and Jacob wanted to come in to help them get ready for going back in with Newcastle for pre-season on Monday. They were bespoke sessions for each of them so we look at Sean’s position as one of the higher of the three midfielders that they play and it’s about what he needs for that role.
“It was the same with Jacob as a winger so we ran the session where Ben took Sean and did some midfielder play and I took Jacob to go into details of being a winger. It was really interesting to hear him discussing crossing zones and his responsibility as a winger and what he is asked to do.”
Professionalism
Cartwright, who has also provided sessions for former Magpies left-back Jamal Lewis in recent months, praised both Murphy and Longstaff for the attitude they showed in recent weeks and believes both players show just what is required to become established at the top level of the game.
“The professionalism they showed was brilliant to see,” he explained. “I’ve said this to the young boys and girls within our set-up that you look at Sean and Jacob, two Premier League players that have played in the Champions League and have won a trophy with Newcastle - but they aren’t willing to just settle, they are pushing themselves. They could have just turned up, gone through the motions and do their fitness work but their engagement, the detail they spoke about, it was great to see. The two of them engaged really well, they worked really hard and it’s a testament to them as professionals because know how tough it is at the top level and they are doing everything possible to keep striving forwards.”
Experience
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Working with children of all ages and with players plying their trade at the top end of the game have led Cartwright to fall back on his own experience of making his way through the Academy of Light as he paid tribute to the mentality and discipline that was instilled in him by some renowned Black Cats figures.
He explained: “The main thing I took from Sunderland is the discipline and the understanding of the standards expected to get to that level and, most of all, stay at that level. That’s the hard thing for young players, it’s keeping that mentality high and the practices and detail at the academy, working with some of the best coaches around in Kevin Ball, Elliott Dickman and Robbie Stockdale, I managed to take great detail from them during my time there.
“We had Jordan Pickford in the year above, we had George Honeyman, Lynden Gooch, Duncan Watmore, they’ve all had good careers and there are loads of others that have done really well. If you asked them the same question, they would say they were given a good grounding at Sunderland that has helped them during their careers.”
Natural progression
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As former Black Cats team-mates Watmore, Gooch and Honeyman made their way into the senior setup at the Stadium of Light, Cartwright was released by the Black Cats during the summer of 2015 before embarking on his career in non-league. Even at that difficult moment in his playing career, thoughts of coaching were already prominent as he set out a plan that is now fully in fruition.
He said: “Coaching was a natural progression for me and I think it is for a lot of young players who fall out of the full-time game. I found my love for coaching when I was coaching within the academy and that was definitely the route I wanted to go down. I wanted to run my own company doing it and it was just how that looked running alongside playing in non-league.
“It’s crazy how far it has come because we set up ACFC in 2020 and it started during Covid doing one-to-one sessions and I always wanted it to be bigger. That was the start and then I started running camps before looking into setting up NE Coaching Co alongside Ben Carr, who I met at Sunderland and has been around the academy coaching set-up for years. That was an invite-only set-up and we have had some really good results with kids that have been signed by academies and we have some really good boys and girls in the set-up now.”
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