The 24-year-old manager who has won a top-flight promotion

Football has long disproven the notion that you can't win anything with kids.

It turns out it doesn't just apply to players.

Just ask Llandudno, the north Wales club who this weekend will celebrate the end of an all-conquering campaign that will see them return to the top-flight Cymru Premier after a seven-year absence that included genuine fears over their future.

At the helm? A manager younger than the majority of the promotion-winning team he selects.

At just 24, Jordan Hadaway has orchestrated Llandudno's revival, sealing the second-tier Cymru North title in style - and is likely to be the youngest top-division boss in Europe next season.

Incredibly, he will do so with a decade of coaching experience already to his name - including a touch of Real Madrid mentoring.

It's an impressive CV for someone who would still be considered young if he was in the starting XI rather than selecting it.

But it's even more eye-catching given the circumstances in which this Gen Z gaffer got his break.

Back in 2023, Llandudno were unable to use their own ground, had seen their entire coaching staff walk out and didn't have enough players to field a side with the second-tier season just weeks away.

Perceived football wisdom suggests you look to an old head at times of crisis but Llandudno chairman Dave Guinn turned to a 21-year-old youth team coach.

"I don't think you could print some of the things that were said to me on social media when we appointed him," Guinn recalls.

"But there was a gut feeling. Jordan just had an aura about him, that he wasn't just talking the talk."

Hadaway might have wondered what he had got himself into, with the club's financial situation at the time described as "dire".

"The pitch had been condemned and we were £100,000 short of paying for a new pitch," Hadaway says, the club forced to play home games in Bangor and Conwy, money going out without coming in.

"There were no revenue streams, I was working unpaid because the FAW had taken the academy away so we were in a bit of turmoil.

"I was asked to step in and that I had a £400 budget – the lowest in the league – just to get a squad to start the season. And we had to pay a physio out of that.

"That's what makes staying up that year so special."

All a long way from the riches of the Bernabeu.

Not that Hadaway – inspired by his football-mad grandfather and whose parents are Everton season ticket holders – was going to take his place among the Galacticos.

An academy player at his local club in Holywell, he turned to coaching at 14 having decided he wasn't going to achieve what he wanted as a player and "didn't fancy refereeing".

It included working with the Real Madrid foundation - coaching their style of football on courses in the UK and Europe - and included a convention where he listened to coaching lectures from the likes of Roberto Carlos and Raul , while grabbing a selfie with Alvaro Arbeloa.

Hadaway laughs about whether the current Real boss has been in touch given the success at Llandudno which came after becoming a manager in the Welsh fifth-tier at 18, an assistant job in the Cymru Premier with Cefn Druids before finding his way to the Seasiders, where he also led the women's team to the Cymru North title in 2024 and only missed out on the top-flight after a play-off final defeat

Nothing has stopped the men's side this year, though, with only seven points dropped from 29 games. At home, they have been flawless with 50 goals scored and only six conceded.

"At the start of the season we wanted to finish in the top four and better last year's points," he says, with sights now set on making Llandudno a top-flight mainstay.

"I didn't think we'd win the league, perhaps as a manager I didn't think I'd be experienced enough."

Guinn – who had the agonising wait of making sure promotion was secured by the award of a tier-one licence – said there were some doubts he was doing the right thing in placing such faith in youth.

"His age was a bit of a worry, whether he could control the dressing room," says the former player who was at the club when they faced Swedish giants IFK Goteborg just ten years ago.

"But he had an old head on young shoulders and I'm glad my gut was right."

Hadaway adds: "I wasn't naive when I was appointed. It wasn't so much the players, but others asking why the chairman would put his faith in me when the club could fold if we went down.

"I knew what people were going to say and think but I've always tried to be honest and open and it wasn't about trying to prove anything, just hard work and letting people see. If you treat people with respect it goes a long way

"I'm not without flaws and I don't have everything but I've surrounded myself with good people and I'm able to still learn."

Including during the day job as a PE teacher at a local sixth form, where he says there's not much between the boisterous nature of the classroom or the dressing room.

After all, as football has shown once again, age is just a number.

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