A FORMER Bradford City player has credited his past club for allowing a goalkeeper to develop under his watch at Silsden.

Kyle Welsh had just broke into the Cobbydalers first team before lockdown brought a pause to the grassroots game.

The teenager is part of the Bantams' Football & Education Development Programme.

Silsden manager Danny Forrest said: “Kyle’s been brilliant since he came in in pre-season.

“I have a good relationship with the lads running the Football & Education Programme at Bradford City and we’re working with them to support his development, while also making sure he suits what we need.

“He’s been our under-23s keeper this season, but he’d just started playing with the firsts (against AFC Mansfield on Boxing Day).

“Post-lockdown, he’ll be back at City on the Football & Education Programme. It means he’s been spread quite thinly by us and City, so we’ve got to be careful and it’s why we’ve brought in (goalkeeper) Paul Day to ease that burden.

“Kyle’s a massive prospect and we hope to keep him going forward.”

Forrest added: “With us, none of the players are on contracts, so they do have that freedom.

“But we trust in the players and they trust in what we do. We’re an attractive proposition with the way we run things here and we have certain standards.

“The players want that and they don’t tend to regret coming here. They enjoy it.

“We’ve got (training) programmes for them while we’re not playing and we’re keeping in regular contact with them.

“I’ve never really had to rebuild a squad in the years that I’ve been here, and we’ve just recruited where we needed in the summer.

“We were getting settled and starting to build momentum before the season stopped, and I’d like to keep the squad we have as much as possible.

“If we can keep hold of them all (or the vast majority of them), we’ll be in a good place.”