Everton U18s Lead & sports science chief leave after combined 25 years

Now Southern, who joined Everton’s Academy in 2017, initially in a part-time capacity working across the younger age groups, and McKeown, who has been with the Toffees since 2009, have departed too.

Southern: Academy product to U18s boss

Southern was himself an Everton Academy product, coming through the youth ranks and captaining the club’s reserves in 2001/02. He never made a first-team appearance for the Toffees but went on to make 377 league appearances in a career largely spent at Blackpool.

He was man of the match in the club’s 2010 Championship play-off final win over Cardiff City, which led to their promotion to the Premier League.

After returning to Everton in a coaching capacity, Southern became Assistant to Tait with the U21s and was then promoted to U18s Head Coach in January 2025 after Leighton Baines was promoted to the first-team set-up. 

Southern led the U18s through two seasons and was in charge for the very first match played at Hill Dickinson Stadium – a test event against Wigan’s U18s in February 2025, staged to help secure the stadium’s safety certification – and, a year later, for the ground’s first-ever competitive youth fixture, a dramatic 4-2 extra-time FA Youth Cup win over Ipswich Town in February 2026.

In his one full season in charge, took the U18s to the quarter-finals of both the FA Youth Cup and the U18 Premier League Cup.

Writing on LinkedIn, Southern said he had had “more than eight memorable years of incredible learning, experiences and memories with all of the outstanding players and staff involved.”

He added: “In my near decade of work at Everton, I have coached in the YDP, assisted both teams in the PDP & led the U18s for the last two seasons. My coaching here brought back so many continuous memories of my own youth development journey, at Bellfield starting way back in 1997!

“I am extremely proud and honoured to say that during my time coaching at Everton I managed the very first event at Hill Dickinson Stadium, and I was the first coach to manage a youth cup game there.

“At Everton, I’m also humbled to say that I have coached countless players in the Academy who have went on to play professionally in the men’s game and went onto to have exciting careers within football.

“From the bottom of my heart, I’d like to thank the club for these opportunities and relationships, and more importantly I would like to thank all of my colleagues, players and staff at Finch Farm, past and present, for your support both professionally and personally.

“For now, I am excited to see what comes next in my career, where I look forward to embracing new challenges and new opportunities, and bringing the wealth of knowledge and experience I gathered at Everton into my next role.”

McKeown: Man behind the LJMU pipeline

McKeown had significant experience in senior football before joining Everton in September 2009. He had been Rehabilitation and Fitness Coach at Stoke City and also worked as a First Team Physio at Portsmouth and Derby County.

One of his greatest legacies at Everton is the club’s paid internship programme, which has been running since 2011. This takes about 10 final-year Sport and Exercise Science undergraduates from Liverpool John Moores University into Everton’s Academy each season.

Interns work across disciplines including strength and conditioning, nutrition, performance analysis and psychology, learning directly from the club’s own practitioners. The programme has produced more than 80 graduates now working in professional sport around the world.

Dr Martin Littlewood, Reader in Performance Psychology and Head of The Football Exchange at LJMU, who helped build the programme along with McKeown, wrote on LinkedIn: “John, wow – what a journey and what a contribution you have made to 100s of our students’ lives, development and careers across your time with the club.

“The internship programme has continually evolved in line with EPPP standards and requirements and your leadership throughout has been a lesson to many that have the opportunity to observe and work with you.

“More than anything, human-centred leadership; compassion, empathy, standards, graft and humour will be fondest memories of working with you. What an opportunity to shape future generations of practitioners lives in your next role.”