Brentford’s Youth Team fixture schedule is beginning to take shape as further games against sides from the Northern Section of the Under-18 Professional Development League Two are added to the calendar.
As announced last week a further eight fixtures have been added for Jeremy Steele’s side, four home and four away, taking the total number of fixtures up to 26.
After the initial league season the top two sides from the Northern and Southern Sections will contest a Play-Off to decide national champions.
The Bees have started this season with two draws against Brighton and Hove Albion and last year’s national runners-up Charlton Athletic and defeats against last year’s national champions QPR and current table-toppers Millwall.
The four additional home games, which will be played at the Jersey Road Training Ground, have been confirmed with The Bees taking on Sheffield Wednesday on Thursday October 10, Crewe Alexandra on Friday December 6, Nottingham Forest on Friday February 28 and Birmingham City on Saturday April 5.
Brentford’s trip to Leeds United has also been confirmed for Saturday April 12 while further trips to Coventry City, Barnsley and Derby County are yet to be finalised.
Youth Team Manager Jeremy Steele said he thought these extra games will be helpful for the squad’s development both on and off the pitch and will get them used to the travel involved with being a professional footballer.
“The club are really pleased about these games,” said Jeremy.
“They will be different challenges and different teams.
“We play all the teams in the Southern Section and we know them inside out, even those teams who aren’t in our league, so to go and play the Northern Section teams like Leeds, Barnsley and Sheffield Wednesday will be a different challenge.
“Hopefully there will be some overnight stays which will get the boys into that routine which the first team are in.
“It is a good learning process for them and I am really looking forward to it.
“We will set ourselves up very much like the first team do so the boys will experience that and we will go with their type of schedule.
“We did it last season against Swansea City and it worked excellently: It was a very good learning process and the boys were very professional.”
The full Youth Team fixture list can be seen here.