Promotion-winning captain Grant Leadbitter provides a direct link between the Academy set-up and the first-team, having returned to Boro in June 2022 as an Individual Development Coach.

The former midfielder clocked up 230 appearances for the club between 2012 and 2019, and was crowned Boro’s Player of the Year in 2013, before returning to his boyhood side Sunderland, where he saw out his career until announcing his retirement in the summer of 2021.

Grant spent the 2021/22 season gaining his UEFA A Licence and was a regular visitor to the Academy, where he worked closely with our age-group coaches at Rockliffe.

Signed in the summer of 2012, following the expiry of his contract at Ipswich Town, Grant spent six-and-a-half seasons on Teesside as a player, with the majority of his appearances coming as club captain.