ACADEMY coach Ray Woods is on course to obtain the highest coaching badge in European football.

The ex-Coventry City winger, now in charge of Worcester City's youth set up, has completed the latest phase of his UEFA A coaching certificate after an intensive two-week stint at Lilleshall.

Woods lined up alongside former players such as Everton's Kevin Richardson and Nottingham Forest's Darren Wassall, during an exhausting schedule which consisted of 12 hour days.

The next stage for Woods will be completing a logbook over the coming year and having had his appetite whetted by two weeks of total football, he is eager to put all that theory into practice.

"I'm really looking forward to the new season and taking things to a completely new level which will hopefully benefit both me and the players," he said.

Woods' time was divided between 60 percent spent on practical work such as functions of play, match situations and skill practices to 40 percent spent on theory, dealing with all facets of management and coaching.

Despite the punishing days which lasted from 9am-9pm Woods relished every minute and enthuses about his two weeks at Lilleshall.

"Apart from the Pro Licence, which the likes of Bobby Robson, Marcello Lippi and Alex Ferguson do, the EUFA A badge is the highest qualification in Europe and it's really interesting," he said.

"Even though I have done okay so far and I believe I am not a bad coach when you go into it in such an in-depth way as the UEFA A badge you see there is so much to learn.

"It has got so technical it's almost frightening but you learn such a lot. In the old days you would get your coaching badge after two weeks at Lilleshall where you would either pass or fail but now you have logbooks to fill in, match analysis, functions of play and all sorts of things."

Woods' remains committed to City's burgeoning youth set-up but down the line is ambitious to reach the top.

"I'm ambitious and I want to make City's academy the best in the country," he said. "We played Cirencester in the FA Youth Cup and got beat 4-3 at their ground and were unlucky in terms of player-wise and we were not far away.

"I want us to have the best structure and I feel that might take two to three years and after that I might look at my situation."