'This model is a lot closer to everyone’s hearts': Inside Huddersfield Town's under-21 success story

The Terriers’ academy has had a campaign to be proud of in 2025/26, with the youth teams impressing and several prospects making the step up to first-team football​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Huddersfield Town’s under-21s have defied expectations this season.

Having moved up a level to compete in the 20-team northern section of the Professional Development League, a youthful side largely made up of players below the age limit lost their first five games of the campaign.

But Town soon got to grips with the demands at this level. They finished the season with a ten-game unbeaten run that began with a barmy 8-6 victory over Sheffield Wednesday in February and was capped off by a ten-man 2-1 victory over Coventry City on Tuesday afternoon. This is the longest such sequence any side in the division has put together all season.

Town are now preparing to play in an end-of-season play-off that also includes sides from the division above, starting with an away trip to higher-tier Reading on Monday.

Academy director Jon Worthington has been pleased not just with the under-21s, but with the whole youth structure.

“We’ve got a young under-21s side, so I think it was always going to be interesting to see what the level was like with the Category 2 games,” Worthington told We Are Terriers.

“But the season as a whole has been excellent, really. It couldn’t have gone much better than I anticipated from the start, and that’s from the under-21s all the way down to the pre-academy.

“I think we’ve embedded a lot of processes, and even though it’s a long-term project, we’re already starting to see signs of fruition.”