Follows top players, going round university clubs with Charlie (8)
I believe the answer is:
succeeds
'follows' is the definition.
(I know that follows can be written as succeeds)
'top players going round university clubs with charlie' is the wordplay.
'top players' becomes 'seeds' (eg seeded players in tennis or other sports).
'going round' means one lot of letters goes inside another (some letters go around others).
'university clubs' becomes 'uc' (this could be a standard abbreviation which I don't know about).
'with' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'charlie' becomes 'c' (phonetic alphabet: alpha, bravo, charlie etc.).
'uc'+'c'='ucc'
'seeds' placed around 'ucc' is 'SUCCEEDS'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for succeeds that I've seen before include "Reaches a desired goal" , "comes off" , "Takes someone else's place" , "Follows on the throne and accomplishes what is attempted" , "turns out well" .)