Reds Team Up With Gymnast Beth Tweddle

Manchester United's Academy have teamed up with six-time European Champion, three-time World Champion and 2012 Olympic bronze-medal gymnast Beth Tweddle in a bid to further enhance key skills of players from a young age.

The winner of BBC’s Dancing on Ice programme has set up her own gymnastic company, Total Gymnastics. The Manchester-based company aims to provide gymnastic classes and increase the level of participation in the sport. The collaboration with the Reds was formed when it was recognised that young players were losing the basic movement skills associated with early years' outdoor play.

“It’s becoming widely accepted throughout football that, due to changes in playing experiences, young players are missing out on an important period when lots of our basic movement skills are learnt," explained Les Parry, head of player performance for United's Academy footballers aged nine to 16. "These movement skills lay down the foundations for more complicated movement patterns later in a player’s early career and are therefore vital.”

To address this deficiency in a player’s development, the club have been working with Total Gymnastics and include basic gymnastic skills in the Academy programme for players from nine to 16.

Tony Strudwick, United's head of performance, is excited about the collaboration, adding: "As a world-class club, we have to be associated with world-class providers and working with Beth and Total Gymnastics certainly ticks that box. I'm sure the inclusion of a gymnastic element into out younger development programme will result in players that move more efficiently, are better all-round athletes and become more robust. It's our duty to continually update our development programme to give our young players the best chance of becoming professional footballers."

Although the programme has only been in place for three months, Parry has already seen major improvements: “I was a bit shocked when I saw the early sessions being delivered. Even at under-nine age, players weren’t flexible and struggled with basic coordination movements but, when you watch the boys now, the improvements in such a short period of time have been brilliant."

The starting point wasn’t such a shock to Beth and her staff who knew they could help with some vital work for the youngsters.

“We know there is a real opportunity to improve children’s basic movement skills and that’s why we are working so hard with our after-school Total Gymnastics classes and our in-demand primary schools curriculum," she said. "We are delighted to be working with the young players at the world’s leading academy. This is a fantastic experience for me and my staff and exciting to think that we may be helping to develop the next world-class player to be produced through the United Academy."