Derek Adams' praise for departing Shrimps stalwart

The former Shrimps midfielder made his exit known earlier this week, following a decade in the job.

That followed on from two spells as a player, yielding a club record tally of 606 appearances with 81 goals along the way.

When asked about Drummond’s departure, the Morecambe manager admitted his successor would have big shoes to fill.

“It was the last week or so I heard about it,” Adams said.

“He’s moving on to another job but he’s been a fantastic servant to this football club in a number of roles.

“It’s a hugely difficult job because of the amount of areas you have to cover.

“You have so many children, teams and venues to deal with, so there’s a lot of extremely hard work that goes into it.

“It’s a time-consuming role. A lot of people don’t see what an academy manager does but he’s done an excellent job.”

Whoever succeeds Drummond has the task of continuing his work in developing the academy and ensuring a steady flow of players through the youth system.

Ipswich Town’s Leif Davis and Millwall’s Adam Mayor are perhaps the two highest-profile academy players to have worked under Drummond.

Connor Pye was another success story, progressing through the youth set-up on his way to joining Sunderland in August 2022.

Tyler Brownsword, Freddie Price, Cameron Rooney, Saul Fox-Akande and Adam Fairclough are some of the other youngsters to have tasted first-team action on Drummond’s watch.

The academy manager role will now be advertised and, as Adams revealed, he will have some involvement along the way.

He said: “It will be advertised externally but that doesn’t necessarily mean it will be an external replacement.

“Someone from the inside will be able to apply for the job if they want to and I’ll be involved in the process.

“It’s vital the academy and first team are aligned. There’s always a pathway from the academy to the first team in place but it’s how good the players coming through are.

“They are always given an opportunity, I’ve shown that over my time at this football club. If a young player’s coming through, we will give them that opportunity.”