How Cardiff City developed the best academy in the EFL with the help of ‘the grandparents’ – as Brian Barry-Murphy reveals sales pitch to ward off Premier League clubs and why he’ll stick by his young talents no matter what

They are well versed in the art of mining rich seams in South Wales. They trust the quality of their local resources. They commit to work hard and forge kinship.

So, when Cardiff City sought a reset, the decision to go back to unearthing and nurturing their own talent served them well.

No team in the EFL gave more game time to its homegrown players last season than Cardiff as they bounced back into the Championship at the first attempt under Brian Barry-Murphy.

More than a third of all minutes played came from academy graduates.

Among them stylish centre-half Dylan Lawlor, 20, whose effortless step into the Wales team last season has ensured a growing list of admirers including Bayern Munich.

And the Colwill brothers Rubin and Joel, striker Isaak Davies, teenage full back Ronan Kpakio and 21-year-old forward Cian Ashford, who this month received his first call-up from Wales boss Craig Bellamy.

Three times inside the last 12 months, the Bluebirds have set a new club record for their youngest player.

All of which has helped Cardiff emerge from the long shadow of the Emiliano Sala tragedy and subsequent relegation from the Premier League in 2019 and restore some confidence and self-esteem.

‘This is a truly unique club,’ boss Barry-Murphy tells Daily Mail Sport. ‘I’ve been racking my brains trying to figure out if there’s another capital city with only one club playing in a league run by another country.

‘So much has changed in football in recent times, it has become so influenced by finance and outside factors, but at its core there is still a sense of who you’re representing.’

Perhaps the closest points of reference are the Basque clubs Athletic Bilbao and Real Sociedad, both of whom harness identity for sporting reasons in Spain’s La Liga.

‘When I first came here, I truly didn’t realise the size of the club and how far its support stretches, right into the valleys where the history of Cardiff is so deeply rooted in the mines,’ says Barry-Murphy.

‘Our young players have a real sense of who they are and who they represent.’

Modern clubs crave identity like this and spend fortunes manufacturing it. For Cardiff it is a natural advantage and although there were times when they failed to maximise it, this has changed.

Three years ago, they opened the doors of an £8million academy training base in Llanrumney, to the east of the city. The previous year they hired as academy manager Gavin Chesterfield, an expert in player development at the Welsh FA, with 15 years behind him as manager of Barry Town and 20 years in higher education.

‘I don’t want to come across as if we’ve reinvented football, because we haven’t,’ says Chesterfield. ‘We’ve got good players. This is an area that’s always produced players. What we’ve done is focus on opening pathways.

‘Relegation to League One (in 2025) gave us a chance to appraise exactly what we want to stand for. Senior players left and most of those places were filled from the academy.

‘There’s always an element of the unknown, but what is known is that academy players will give their all because they care about where they come from and they harbour a great desire.

‘We’re a patient model. We believe in coaching. We back our own for a bit longer.’

Cardiff looked closely at past models of success, including how Southampton harnessed their academy when they slipped into League One in 2009.

Chesterfield talks of ‘Four Hs’ representing the core values of his academy – honesty, humility, hard work and happiness.

Key details of the environment created at Cardiff include first-team staff taking the trouble to learn about academy players, regular two-way traffic between the first-team base and the academy base, and a collection of staff members affectionately known as ‘the grandparents’ for their long service of more than 10 years who can share experiences and instill culture.

‘Buzzword isn’t it,’ says Barry-Murphy, rolling eyes at the mention of culture. ‘Very fashionable. I never mention it. It’s not something you say. Just what you become. How you act every day.’

Get it right and over time, cultural success should be silent and self-perpetuating, with the likes of 24-year-old Rubin Colwill in the first team to guide, advise and serve as an example of what is possible.

Born in Neath, the Colwill brothers were raised with Cardiff loyalties. There is a famous family photo of them as children outside Wembley Stadium in club colours with bluebird crests painted on their faces before the League Cup final against Liverpool in 2012.

‘We don’t single out players, but we do single out Rubin,’ admits Barry-Murphy. ‘Super intelligent guy, great person, very special. Probably the most significant player for Cardiff in our time here.’

And, of course, none of this can work if the talent is not backed with first-team opportunities.

Barry-Murphy, with a fierce commitment to youth development after three years in charge of Manchester City’s Under 21s, working with elite talent such as Cole Palmer and Morgan Rogers, has been thrilled to deliver them.

‘It’s not been difficult because the players we have are very good,’ says the 48-year-old Irishman. ‘When I first came, there had been a history in recent times of acquiring a lot of players for a lot of money from far-reaching fields.

‘One of the big things that attracted me to the job was my understanding of the players beneath the surface here. I knew if I got the job I would play those players.’

Rob Tankiewicz was 16 years and 117 days old when he became Cardiff’s youngest ever player last October – a record held for 18 years by Aaron Ramsey and before him by John Toshack – only for it to pass 64 minutes later to his close friend Axel Donczew, then 15 years and 234 days old.

‘That was an emotional night for everyone in the academy,’ says Chesterfield.

In August, Noah Anyadike claimed the record, just 15 years and 98 days old when he made his debut in a Carabao Cup tie with Norwich.

‘All players are very different,’ says Barry-Murphy. ‘Noah is well developed physically, a big strong guy for 15, so he can cope. Rob and Axel were less developed physically but advanced beyond their years in terms of technical and tactical understanding.’

Arsenal swooped to lure Donczew away in August. ‘Top Premier League clubs can offer finances we can’t,’ says Barry-Murphy. ‘Our biggest sales pitch are the opportunities, but you have to back that up with actions.

‘Dylan Lawlor was outstanding last season. It’s no secret he had many suitors over the summer. He has the potential to play at the very highest level. He’s a very humble guy with a passion to play for Cardiff. I feel that every single day, it’s incredible.

‘We were confident he would stay because we backed up what we said to him at the start of last season about playing so many games.’

The test of nerve will come for Cardiff, a Category Two academy, now they are back in the Championship and hoping to push back towards the Premier League.

‘The challenge of these things will come when you don’t win as often as you did previously,’ says Barry-Murphy. ‘Then you have a choice – either stick by the young players and really believe in them and back them, or do what happened to them previously when they were pushed back a bit so they never quite fulfilled their potential the way they should. 

‘For me, it is not a difficult decision really.’

The ‘Raised in the EFL’ campaign shines a light on the commitment of EFL clubs to the next generation of talent. Over 170 academy players had their professional debut in the Carabao Cup and EFL last season – while 19 of the 26 members of England’s 2026 World Cup squad made their debuts in EFL competition.