The Academy

I had forgotten that the north stand used have home fans in it, but I do wonder in the current climate whether stewarding costs might make that option less attractive these days. I mean we do not even use the whole of the stand when we could undoubtedly sell it out to away fans of several local clubs. If we had built the stand on the west side, rather than the north side, why could we not have segregated that stand to provide additional accommodation for away fans when required?

 

Quite a few years ago as we no longer need to use them but the north stand is designed for full segregation. The away fans access via the west side and the home fans can access via the east stand side with a sealed off carpark between the two preventing fans getting anywhere near each other

 

Fair enough. Are you sure things are still the same, only we regularly do not fill that stand with away support, presumably because the SY police have told us to increase stewarding if we do. What do we think their reaction would be to a shared stand?

 

All of it.

You didn't answer my question about jogging everyone's memory.

 

I suppose we could, but then it's just a case of should we develop this stand or that stand, it can't be brought in to an argument about the cost of the academy.

Developing the north stand before the west had significant advantages. Where would the players change while the west stand was under development? If we reduced the stand to rubble there were no changing facilities on match days (or training days for that matter, everything was housed under the west stand).

We also wanted changing facilities that linked directly to the training areas which are housed under the new north stand, which stopped our players walking up Grove Street in their booits.

I don't believe developing the west stand was a straight forward as the north. Wasn't there an issue with the building across the street? I'm sure I've heard either John Dennis or Patrick Cryne or even both mention such.

We had 2000 uncovered seats on a strip of concrete built on a slag heap. We had an ambitious chairman who wished to develop our dilapidated ground. The obvious next stage in development was to replace that muck stack and while we were doing that it also made sense to update our changing facilities for limited extra cost. This meant that we could develop the west stand at a later date.

Maybe the north stand is too big, but something needed doing, and it's not like it's never filled. And it regularly accommodates more fans than we previously had facilities for. If we are successful under the new owners, if we can get back to the Premier League, we'll not think the stand is too big then.

 

Ive only briefly read through the opening post ( due to other commitments) but i see fault in its basis based on what i know ....If memory serves me right we dont own the old coop ground we have a life time lease on the ground as long as its used for sports, the majority of the money that paid for the five aside pitches and the indoor training facilities were paid for with grants from Uefa and the football league which were sorted out by Dave Bassett when he was manager ...Barnsley had already sunk test bore holes which were hastily covered up when they got an arranged inspection from the FA to assess the feasibility of such a build....so in theory the training facilities have cost the club little in start up costs ..taking this into consideration it alters the whole argument surely.

 

I was certainly unaware of what you have said, but I'm not sure that it defeats the whole of the argument about those developments. The opening post has two threads. The second thread is about the £1m per year cost of running the academy, and to be honest, that is the main reason I began this thread.

 

If we only take that into account, have the player sales covered the operating costs? If they haven't, it can't be far off.

For years I was sceptical about the academy. It didn't seem to produce in terms of putting good players in our team or generating money from selling them. But things changed dramatically with the money we received for John Stones. Just by producing that one player we recouped so much. Add the money from others like Holgate, Flinders amd Bree and it starts to look self financing.Take into account that we also get game time from these players and it's difficult to see a downside.

 

I do not dispute most of what you have written and to be honest, my main points were about the £1m annual cost of the academy. Many threads have a life of their own once they begin, and what was a side issue to my main point about the cost of running the academy now seems to have taken the thread over. I do not intend to go on debating whether we should have built the west stand first or the north stand. I thought that it should have been the west stand at the time and I continue to do so. In my opinion, all the other issues could have been solved by building separate changing facilities. However, it is a pleasure to conduct a debate with someone who has some respect for the person he is debating with. Thanks for that

 

But you have no breakdown of that £1m. No idea if that is JUST coaches or if it includes the maintenance and upkeep of all the actual facilities as well. What age groups it covers and at what proportion etc.

By the way our academy gets £500,000 funding per year from the premier league

 

Probably also worth pointing out that the undersoil heating and boiler system were also done as part of the North Stand Costs.

If you’ve seen inside the North Stand facilities, and what is in there and how it used by all levels of the club, you’d soon realise it was a no-brainer and has truly served it purpose for what it was intended for. In fact it was probably a few years ahead of its time when built.

Segregation wise, it can still be done, but not been used for years and isn’t currently required.

 

I have dealt with this earlier in replies to Conan and Supertyke but I will address the topic again. Mr Cryne gave a figure of £1m per year as academy cost. Over 18 years, that amounts to £18m. If you add up all the transfer fees received, we are probably still about £4m short. Supertyke pointed out that there were also players who graduated from the academy and played for the first team who are not cover by transfer fees, but who might have cost us a fee. That is true but a young player graduates from the academy at the age of 18, but he does not become a saleable asset immediately. His education continues through the U23s under the training regime of the first team coaches, so is it right that the whole of the transfer fee be credited to the academy. In any event, I am not saying that we should do without an U23 team. I think we do need that. It is the vale of the academy that I question.

The academy covers ages 8 to 18. A huge number of players will go through the system, but an average of only 3 players per year are offered contracts when they graduate. Indeed, only 6 players per year enter the final 2 years of academy training and some of those are taken from outside the club's academy system. So the whole massive edifice is constructed in order to produce 3 players per year. This is not enough to supply sufficient players for the U23 team, so we recruit from other sources for that team. All we have to do is recruit 3 more and we do not need an academy. The fact that a player is from our academy or a different academy seems unrelated to the expected success rate. I well remember watching our academy beat Spurs at Oakwell in a youth cup game. Harry Kane scored with a penalty but we scored three. I was confident that Danny Rose, Reuben Noble Lazarus, Jordan Clarke and John Stones would go on to great things, but only Stones did so. Academies are a huge risk. Why not let others take that risk and simply pick up the pieces

 

It is £1m a year NOW due to the restructuring of the academy system around 5 years ago. Prior to that it was much lower costs so no it's not £18m.

The premier league funds our academy to the tune of £500,000 a year and have done so since the restructur

 

The Premier League funding is the reason they get the chance to take their pick from our choice young players at a fixed compensation rate.

 

So it cost £1m in 1999 and still costs £1m today? Hmmmmmm.......

Still waiting for you to tell me what happened in the season we opened the north stand, or has that slipped your memory too?

 

Maybe so but I wasn't debating why they pay us I was simply saying that they DO pay half a million toward the cost of running the academy every year. One of the many things you seem to be ignoring.

 

It doesn't fit with his agenda.

 

When average English players are going for tens of millions of pounds it'd be silly of us to turn our backs on the academy. I believe that when they took over the new owners commended the facilities present, and the fact that it maintains a significant potential source of revenue is one of the reasons the investors decided to acquire a stake in the club.

 

If you are saying that our academy cost us only £500k per year net, and that is accurate, then I am wrong. The academy is worth having. I have enjoyed our debate. It has passed a cold and snowy day. You win. You could have saved us all some time by reporting that earlier, but as I say it has passed the day.

 

What agenda is that?