On 30th July, the Premier League confirmed that Roddy will become its new Director of Youth.

Roddy's task will be to monitor, support and enhance the work of the clubs in the area of youth development, writes Stewart Coggin.

After 17 years overseeing the University of Bath's sports department in the role of Director of Sport, Roddy will now be looking to improve the standard of youth development among Premier League clubs, with the ultimate aim of increasing the number of home grown players participating in first-team matches.

"I'm really looking forward to it," he told premierleague.com. "It's a great honour to be part of the greatest football league in the world and an opportunity to work at a time when there is so much going on in English football.

"It's a great chance to help support and develop the next stage in the development of young players, particularly young English players. The thing that really excites me is the opportunity to develop the sport's best academy system and produce the best English players in the world which is a challenge but also very exciting.

"It is mouth-watering because it is the best league in the world, it attracts the best players and has the best clubs. So it is important we develop the best young English players to perform on that stage and that is going to be the focus of what we're going to be doing."

Roddy will be working closely with each of the Premier League academies and his influence should introduce some fresh impetus.

"My understanding is that I'll be working with each of the academies with the aim of building on the good work of the (previous) Director of Youth and adding a little bit of something different to it," he continued.

"I'll be building on 25 years experience of developing young athletes, not just from football but a range of sports. I will draw on some of those experiences and I will be looking to learn from each of the clubs, making sure that understanding of how you develop the best young players in the world is shared around the clubs as much as possible."

Roddy masterminded Bath's successful delivery of the European Youth Olympics in 1995 by overseeing a significant investment in sporting facilities at the university campus. He also led the development of the TeamBath concept  that includes 16 elite training squads, the 2004 opening of the multi-million pound sports training village complex and the University's joint hosting of the UK School Games in 2008.

Over the years regional squads have taken advantage of the unique training environment backed by world-class facilities, coaches, sports science, medicine and lifestyle support, all overseen by Roddy who helped secure £35m investment in his 17 years there. He thinks that role will stand him in good stead for the Director of Youth position.

"I had a great time there and it was an enjoyable experience," he said. "Over a prolonged period I had the chance to work with athletes who went to every Olympic Games from 1992 onwards and saw athletes in our programme win medals, so I learned a lot by doing that."

Roddy, whose athletes have won medals in every Olympic Games from 1992, was the manager of TeamBath Football Club, who attracted headlines in 2002 for becoming the first university side in 122 years to reach the first round proper of the FA Cup. The club was created in 2000 to give youngsters being released by professional clubs the opportunity to resurrect their career while earning a degree.

"The TeamBath football experiment was very much based around taking players out of the Premier League academies who hadn't quite made it," he reflected.

"The experiment there aimed to get them back into professional football, and we managed to do that in certain cases. I learned a lot about the sort of player that the Premier League has been producing, and it was a 10-year experiment really. I got an understanding of what young players have, and perhaps don't have, so there are some big challenges.

"A lot of 18-year-old players have probably had around 8000-9000 hours of contact with their coaches, but most research will tell you that you probably need over 10000 hours of serious contact with coaches if you are to become expert at what you're doing.

"There are some challenges for the whole system in terms of making sure players are getting the amount of time needed to develop the skills to be successful in the Premier League."

Roddy admits it was a thrill to lead TeamBath into the first round of the FA Cup, and acknowledges the role of Premier League clubs in helping them achieve this unique feat.

"I guess the whole project was based on the belief you can take young players out of the academies, put them in the right environment and they can flourish," he continued.

"I think at the start we had a belief and we weren't exactly sure how far it would go, and then obviously to find ourselves in the FA Cup. I think at the time it shocked other people more than us. We were just rolling with things.

"Over nine years we achieved six promotions and you do pinch yourself a little bit. We had a lot of help from the Premier League, a lot of clubs gave us players who weren't quite ready for contracts. We were always dealing with good players, and in that respect, we were blessed because we had an advantage.

"But really there was a lot of common sense applied, bringing in players who hadn't matured as quickly as they needed to to play in the Premier League structure, giving them that little bit of time.

"Also drawing on some of the scientific expertise I had available at the university, I was able to give them that little bit of time and space to develop. They were great experiences and hopefully they will stand me in good stead for the challenges ahead."

Roddy has been acting as the deputy chairman of Sport England for the last two years. Sport England are developing a world-leading community sport system aimed at sustaining participation in grassroots sport. Roddy's experience there will only add to what he has to offer as Director of Youth.

"I was involved in developing the new sports strategy for England," he added. "I worked with a group of people over the last 12 months and having set that up, I stepped away from it, but I probably spent six years trying to make sure that things were in the right sort of shape leading up to 2012."