BRISTOL CITY: Backwell-born Joe Bryan lending helping hand to City's youth graduates. By a_Stockhausen please log in to view this image Bristol City wing-back Joe Bryan. BRISTOL City starlet Joe Bryan is offering sound advice to the club's latest youth academy graduates. Centre-back Lloyd Kelly and midfielder George Dowling recently penned their first professional contracts, having successfully come through the Ashton Gate ranks. And the teenagers are now intent upon emulating Bryan, the 22-year-old wing-back who became a first-team regular and helped City win a League One title and Johnstone's Paint Trophy double last season. Bryan is the first home-grown product to nail down a regular place in the first team since Cole Skuse and Louis Carey, and he knows what it takes to make the grade in the ultra-competitive world of professional football. He believes Kelly and Dowling have the natural ability to excel, but insists they must be prepared to make sacrifices if they want to follow in his footsteps. He warned: "When you are a teenager, you reach that stage where your friends are all experimenting with things like drink and girls. "I was lucky that I lived outside of Bristol and didn't get dragged into all of that. But if you really want it (to be a professional footballer), then you cannot drink alcohol and stay out late. "You have to be very single-minded and decide what it is you really want. Then you have to be prepared to make sacrifices. "Surely it is not too much to ask to give up a couple of nights out a week with your mates to make it in your chosen profession." Graduates of City's Academy and Under-18 youth team, Bristolians Kelly and Dowling are continuing their development in Wade Elliott's Under-21 set-up. Kelly travelled to Portugal with the senior squad last summer, while both have trained with the first team. The next stage in their progression will be to force their way into manager Steve Cotterill's plans. Bryan has been there and done it and has the following words of advice for his young colleagues. He said: "You have to work so hard every day, but even with that it is difficult, because you are still growing physically and mentally. "You are going to have bad days, even bad months, when you are growing and feel gangly like a giraffe. You cannot afford to get down about things like that and you have to overcome those problems. "If anything, it was a bit easier for me, because I didn't have to take that middle step of Under-21s. I went from the youth team straight to training with the first team." He added: "It is easier in some respects if you are from Bristol, because everyone wants to see you do well. You know you are going to be given that little bit more time to make an impression." http://www.bristolpost.co.uk/BRISTOL-CITY/story-28179196-detail/story.html
