FIVE teams from Adam Barrett’s Players Football Academy were in action across the weekend.

The academy’s under 10s, under 12 and under 13 sides played against Southend United on Friday evening before the under eights and nines took on Colchester United the following day.

And Shrimpers’ centre-back Barrett felt the matches showed the progress which is being made by his young players.

“The games show that we’ve come a very long way in a short space of time,” said the 35-year-old.

“I wasn’t obviously at the matches myself because I was in Bury getting soaked but Steve Tilson took one of the teams and the feedback from of the coaches was very positive.

“The lads conducted themselves in a professional manner which makes me very proud and we managed to beat Colchester too.

“It’s not really about the results though and what pleased me more was that Colchester are now keen on a couple of our players.

“That’s exactly the reason why we run this academy and we’ve already had more than 30 boys go to professional clubs, including many going to Southend, which is very pleasing.”