Oakwell academy manager Bobby Hassell is hoping to repay the club who provided him with a huge chunk of his professional career by helping to create Barnsley-born Reds stars of the future.

The 36-year-old, who played 299 games in ten seasons with Barnsley, has been in charge of the youth set-up for three months after initially returning to the club last season as head of academy recruitment.

He told the Chronicle: "It's a great honour. I had ten years at the club as a player and I feel part of the club and part of the town. I wanted to give something back to the club that gave me so much in my career. Hopefully I can do that by helping create the stars of the future and making sure that more Barnsley lads come into the first team."

There have been some frustrations for Hassell. He says he was offered a trial for Hednesford left-back Cohen Bramall, who instead made a well-publicised move to Arsenal, as well as a French under 16 international but the Reds could not sort out the paperwork and he has since had trials at Real Madrid and Barcelona. Hassell has scouts in Scotland and Ireland but his main focus is closer to home.

He said: "We have broadened our base in Barnsley. The ultimate goal is to have a first team squad which has at least five or six Barnsley lads in it who have come through the youth system. We have been losing too many local lads to the Sheffield clubs and also Manchester City and Manchester United who have flooded our area with scouts."We are starting to bring in kids as young as five, although we can't sign them until they are nine.

"We are going around all the schools in Barnsley and inviting them in for fun games twice a week. We need at least 60 per cent of our nine to 16 age group to be from Barnsley. We've had a big push with recruitment, which has let us down in the past. But it will be five to ten years before we see the fruits of it."

In the short-term, Hassell is excited about several of the current under 18s, including defender Matty Wolfe who he says is ahead of where England international and £47.5million signing John Stones was at the same age.

"We have two or three other players in that age group who have a good chance.  It's a phenomenal gap between the youth team and the Championship and, in my time at the club as a player, only Jacob Butterfield and John Stones managed it."

The Oakwell academy is set for an audit this month. Hassell said: "The last time we had an audit, our curriculum was called the best in the country and Premier League clubs were scratching their heads about why Barnsley was outperforming them."

When it comes to outperforming bigger clubs, the Reds first team have pleasantly surprised Hassell, who returned to the club when they were in the League One relegation zone in 2015.

He said: "The only team I can think of who have done anything like it is Bristol City (in 2008) when they got to the play-off final in their first first season and with no Championship experience.  What has happened in the last 14 months or so is unbelievable and nothing like it can ever have happened before in the club's history.

"When I was a Championship player here, we would have a good month or two then go on a downward spiral but what has impressed me about this team is their consistency.  The other thing is that they are one of the top-scoring teams, which was always our downfall in the past. The players have to take a massive amount of credit, but Paul Heckingbottom has been phenomenal for this football club."

Hassell says this January transfer window, in which several stars left, reminds him of the same period five years ago when Keith Hill lost Danny Drinkwater, Jacob Butterfield and Ricardo Vaz Te. He said: "We were just outside the play-offs but we never recovered from losing those players. I hope and pray that doesn't happen this time and I don't think it will because Paul is such a good coach and he knows how to use his players."