WANDERERS believe their pioneering Life Academy will help them steal a march on their rivals and attract the best young players in the country for years to come.


While other clubs, splashed out on quick-fix players this summer, Wanderers chairman Andrew Howard put his own cash into a house for the club’s young players and loan stars to live in.


And he has put a chaperone into the property to ensure the club’s young stars don’t go off the rails in their boys’ pad and that they are eating the right foods and living the right way.


Howard said: “Discipline and respect are key.”


The occupants will be expected to keep the house clean and tidy and they will also be given gardening duties as well to ensure the house looks spick and span on the inside and out.


Much of Wanderers’ success last season was built on their good contacts and ability to lure players from bigger clubs on loan and this new scheme has helped cement their position as a being a good place for the bigger clubs to loan rising stars to.


Premier League Aston Villa contacted Wanderers, rather than the other way, when it came to lending the Blues their centre half Janoi Donacien to the club for a month and other higher league clubs are also looking favourably on the scheme.


And it doesn’t stop there. Howard revealed that the club’s reputation is spreading further afield with the house almost helping them lure a player from Europe, a deal that will not happen in this transfer window, but could still happen further down the line.


Howard said: “We couldn’t quite do that one but it is a sign of how we are regarded.


He added: “I see the house as a tool to attract players and it already has. It was Villa that came down and talked to us and it’s not just them.


“We were brilliant in the loan market last year. Gareth Ainsworth  has excellent relationships with clubs but we need an environment to bring the loan players in and this gives us that.


“It is opening doors for us. It doesn’t mean we get the deals, and it might not get us the players we always want. For instance we were offered a fantastic lad, an U21s international but unfortunately he wasn’t going to fit the squad from a position point of view because we have already got cover there.”


And with Reading U21s and several of Europe’s top U21 clubs booked into play at Adams Park this season the timing of getting the house for this season is crucial.


Howard said: “We are going to have some precious lads performing on our pitch and if we want these guys you have to have top facilities.”


The house, or Life Academy, as it is known has communal areas as well as some private bedrooms for the players and a shared bedroom to get the players used to the concept of rooming together on  the long overnight away trips.


Howard explained: “The idea for the house came about when we signed Fred Onyedinma on loan from Millwall last season. I was sitting in the office at the training ground with the manager and Fred and I suddenly saw this massive vulnerability in Fred who was leaving home for the first time to come to us. I suddenly realised how much we put on young lads in football as he got into his taxi at the age of 17 to go to his digs on his own.


“I was driving home that evening and phoned Gareth  and said ‘this is daft we need some place where these lads can live’. It’s common in the motorsport world, where my background is, and I had a chat with my wife Susie and we came up with the idea of getting a house and putting four or five lads in it. The idea is to have two or three permanents living in there and leave space to attract some players from other clubs.”


The club have installed their assistant sports scientist Reece Clifford as a live in chaperone at the house and while it is not Big Brother he is expected to report back to the club if any problems arise.


Howard said: “There are no excuses. The players are expected to work together. They have to work as a team and show people respect because you have to do that when you live with people. We want to coach them in life skills a bit as well. They are going to have cooking lessons from the club chef and we will get someone in to show them the basics of laundry, ironing etc.


“We are mentoring them in a way that you would want your kids to be mentored. We don’t make it easy. There are ‘landlady type’ rules for living in the house. There are curfews, there are rules. It’s a starry world out there and when I left school at 16 I wouldn’t have survived in this house. These people are footballers, they got one chance to be a footballer and they have to give 100 per cent to being footballers.


“It’s a funny old world that suddenly you are expected to be totally in control and what we are trying to do is try and teach them boundaries which will hopefully live with them while they go through their football careers and afterwards.”


And Howard reckons it won’t be too long before Wycombe start seeing the dividends as a club.


He said: “The youngsters we’ve got, if they are managed right, will either have massive value to us from a football point of view or they will have a massive resale value so we want an environment where we can develop them. We haven’t got an academy so this could be a way where maybe we could bring lads in who are maybe a little bit older and we could stamp our mark and development on.”