Almost 100 players who have come through the Everton Academy are now playing professionally around the UK and further afield. This new series looks at their journeys and what it is about the Blues’ methods that helps produce so many quality footballers.
After a few years of moving around and playing in a few struggling teams, Stephen Schumacher seems to have found a perfect fit.
The Everton Academy product is a natural leader and, while he once skippered a Blues youth team including Wayne Rooney, these days he wears the armband at Bury Football Club.
Schumacher, now 26, has a mature look to his game, sitting deep and breaking up play and keeping it simple in front of the Shakers’ back four.
He is the foundation the team is built on and Bury are enjoying a good season.
Alan Knill’s side occupy an automatic promotion slot in League Two and after a few years of knocking on the door will hope this is the season they make the step up.
As the team’s skipper, Schumacher is pivotal to their success, and he says the basis of his game remains the principles drummed into him at the Blues Academy.
“I will always be thankful for the time I spent at Everton,” the Kirkby-born player told evertonfc.com. “I was a boyhood Blue, I am still a massive fan and I loved being at the Club.
“The Academy there is fantastic and teaches young players everything they need. Obviously the plan is for those players to make it there but if they can’t then they give you what you need to be a footballer.
“If you look down through the leagues there are so many lads to have come through the Academy now playing professionally. I keep in touch with so many of the lads and a lot of them are doing really well.
“I took so much from my time there, not just as a player but in how to conduct myself off the pitch as well. They teach you how to behave properly and play like a proper player.
“On the pitch, me personally, I learnt to keep things simple, to be calm and make the right decisions. Those things have stayed with me and I still try to play that way now.”
Schumacher was an integral part of the Academy side during his time at the Club and, as well as skippering the Blues, he also took the armband for England Under-16s and Under-19s.
He was part of the team that lost in the FA Youth Cup final over two legs to Aston Villa in 2002.
“We had a really good team from back to front that season,” he said. “Obviously Wayne Rooney was scoring a lot of goals and you could tell he was a special player, but we had plenty of good footballers in that team.
“We lost the final but perhaps did not do ourselves justice over the two games against Villa.”
After loan spells with Carlisle United and Oldham Athletic, Schumacher eventually left Goodison Park in 2004 having not made a senior appearance.
“It was disappointing not to have played for the first team,” he added. “My dad is a massive Everton fan and I think he was probably more disappointed than I was.
“I was on the bench a few times but never got on – it was difficult for us at the time.
“I was trying to get a game in central midfield with players like Thomas Gravesen, Lee Carsley, Li Tie, Mark Pembridge and Tobias Linderoth ahead of me. They were all international footballers so it was tough.
“David Moyes came to a group of us and, to be fair he was straight with us, and said I can’t see you playing here but you are all good enough to play somewhere else and get a career out of football.”
After leaving his hometown club, Schumacher joined Bradford City where made more than 100 first team appearances. Since then he spent three seasons at Crewe before moving on again to Gigg Lane.
At 26 he has already got more than 250 career appearances under his belt, some achievement in its own right, and with Bury mounting a serious promotion challenge it should be a good year for him.
And as the interview comes to a close in the players’ lounge at Bury, it becomes clear why Schumacher has been craning his neck.
“I’ve been looking at that TV,” he explains. “I was trying to see how we got on.”
He is, of course, referring to Everton.
