With just 15% of the clubs youth setup from the town the club have launched the 'Future Stars' scheme between the clubs center of excellence and the community setup.
The Advertiser reports, in the next year, every school will be visited by the Future Stars scheme and offer a free two-week programme of coaching to youngsters aged 5-7 in line, the ones with most potential will be invited to attend an Elite Development Centre at Aston Comprehensive School run under the umbrella of Rotherham United. These will be held on Saturday mornings under the direction of qualified coaches, again for free.
Youngsters who progress to U9s level will then be given the opportunity to join the club's Centre of Excellence programme.
Dale Spiby, Rotherham United Community Sports Trust manager said: "The ethos of the project is to give children from Rotherham the opportunity to become professional footballers and as far as I know, no club has ever done anything like this before."
"There's a lot of competition for the best kids and the likes of Manchester United, Leeds United, Derby County, Huddersfield Town and the Sheffield clubs are all active in this area."
"What we want to do is to identify the talented youngsters in our schools much earlier and really sell the benefits of playing for their local club. What we can offer is the chance to play first-team professional football much earlier. Promising kids can be in the first team at Rotherham by the age of 17 or 18, as the likes of Stephen Brogan and Jamie Green have done, whereas they might be sat in the reserves at Sheffield United until they're 24."
"Of course, our most gifted juniors might move on from us, but what we are saying is that if kids from Rotherham are going to be professional footballers, at least play for Rotherham United first. If they go elsewhere, at least we've identified them first and are not letting anyone slip the net. Even the apprentices who fail to make the grade often go on to earn money from the game at a decent non-league standard." Dale added.
Steve Thornber, the Millers youth team manager helped start the scheme after another dissapointing influx of local kids into the youth setup this year.
"Of the 16-year-olds who signed apprentice forms, not one was from Rotherham and that's when the penny dropped. It was clear we had to do something." Thornber said.
"We invest heavily in youth and six of the current first team are Centre of Excellence products. I don't know any other club in South Yorkshire who can say that. With 'Future Stars', we want to identify the talent on our doorstep and create a network to keep doing so." he added