West Ham academy chief hails Graham Potter influence on wonderkids – ‘my eyes opened up’. 0llie Scarles has developed into a part of the first-team squad at West Ham since his Premier League debut and academy chief Kenny Brown points to manager Graham Potter’s support
West Ham United’s reputation as a breeding ground for top young talents precedes them, but sometimes it takes the emergence of the latest first-teamer to remind people there have been times when that wasn’t the case. For every Rio Ferdinand, Joe Cole or Mark Noble, there are countless more who get within touching distance but don’t quite make the grade.
There have been green shoots and then some over the last 12 months, though. George Earthy’s emergence at the end of last season brought positivity at a time when on-field results weren’t what they might have been, while this year it’s been the turn of Ollie Scarles to step up.
Scarles, 19, made his senior debut under David Moyes, playing 90 minutes in the Conference League against FCSB in November 2022. His Premier League bow followed in December, when Julen Lopetegui was in charge, but it’s under Graham Potter where the teenager has seen opportunities come his way in earnest.
When West Ham travelled to the Emirates Stadium in February, Potter trusted Scarles to start at left wing-back. He played a full 90 for the first time in the Premier Premier League, keeping Champions League winner Emerson on the bench, and Jarrod Bowen scored a famous winner for the Hammers.
The last few months have been a whirlwind not just for Scarles but also for Kenny Brown, the former West Ham defender who took over as the club’s academy manager in 2023. Speaking to Mirror Football at a special screening of Premier League Stories: Dylan Tombides at Curzon Bloomsbury, to mark the start of Testicular Cancer Awareness Month, Brown opened up on how he has worked with Potter to get his academy stars ready for first-team action – and why he’s sure Scarles won’t be the last to make the step up.
“I think we can create a pathway within the academy but what you need and what these players need is an opportunity,” Brown says. “We’ve got a manager at the moment in Graham who quite quickly identified Ollie and got him in the first team environent and he hasn’t looked back.
“I’m sure he’s going to have a brilliant future with us. But there’s others alongside that, we’ve got talented players out on loan, they’re going to have an opportunity to be under the company of the new management in pre season and then it‘s down to them.
