Whilst he is still in charge of first-team affairs at the club, Dario Gradi will always put his faith in young players and he believes that his judgement is once again justified by the impressive performances of Shaun Miller, Byron Moore, Luke Murphy, Matt Tootle and Ashley Westwood of late. Fellow Academy graduate James Bailey also returned from injury to star in last Friday's 2-1 win at Burton Albion. The future does look bright for the Railwaymen, especially with more talented youngsters coming through the ranks.
Dario says that giving youth a chance and then hopefully selling some of them remains fundamentally the most important thing about the club.
Dario told crewealex.net: "People ask me about ambition and I say that the most important thing is that we remain in full-time football. I think we are seeing more and more cases of that not happening. You only have to look at the situation with Chester.
"That has to remain our objective and I know there are certain supporters at Crewe who are opposed to the Academy. As a football club we are fully committed to it because it is vital for our survival. Developing our own for our team and then for generating necessary funds is the only way.
"We have not had some good times here recently, but if we can build a promotion winning team over the next couple of seasons then it will become exciting again, especially with the good young players coming through. That stretches down to the Under 7s. There are potentially some very good players here and that is the way forward.
"You only have to see the progress being made by the likes of Westy and Matt Tootle. It is good to see them go into the team and to be doing well for Crewe. That is what we are about.
"I was only talking to Westy this week about the fact that he has become quicker. That is through his physical development. He is getting stronger and quicker and that will give him even more confidence.
"He is technically very good so we cannot improve him too much there, but he will get better with more experience and becoming more confident. You don't have to worry about those type of players because he has been here since he was a tot and knows how to play the game."
