I’m a grassroots coach, the academies are the lowest of the low. Quite happy to decimate successful teams then spit the kids out a year or so later far worse people. In my opinion it would be better keeping the kids playing in their teams with academy coaches supporting the grassroots coaches. That way everyone will win, the clubs will still get the players they want when they turn 16, the kids get to play with their mates, the grassroots teams will be better which in turn makes the leagues more competitive. That will help the weaker players get better and also help the coaches develop. I’m sure it’s just pie in the sky, but I think it could work. Just needs one club to try it on a small scale.
Clubs play the numbers game, pure & simple. Ex pro at Barnsley told me that he and his mates in the game wouldn't let their lads anywhere near a professional club academy until they were 15/16 - if they're good enough then they'll make it.
This story has as much to say about the way that journalism works as it does about the way that football does. The typical journalist looks for a potential victim, looks for a rich organisation who could possibly held to account and writes a story that produces a tenuous link between the two. The story has more legs if it involves a reputation that is ripe for the pricking. The problem that I have is that any system of education for any profession has a tendency to over-concentrate on training specifically for that profession. It has to. All of us, whether we go through a professional education or not, pick up life experiences that temper that training and temper the systems of training that we have gone through. The systems build hopes, they build expectations and they build impressions of a future lifestyle that are not sustainable if the individual fails to make the grade, fails to get through the selection process or criteria. In this respect, the only difference between football and any other profession is that the selection process begins at a much younger age, and there really is no justification for the process to begin at the age of 8. Having said that, an 8 year old has no concept about his future life. He has no life experience. His decisions are made for him by his parents, who do have life experiences. Being a parent is not easy and there are tough decisions, but you just cannot sub-contract any of those decisions to a third party and then blame that third party if things do not work out. Parenthood is your responsibility and yours alone. When you make a decision, you bear the consequences of it. Frankly, I am more concerned as to whether investment in young players with potential has the payback financially that we all hope that it has. The Barnsley academy reputedly costs the club £1m per annum. When it produces a John Stones or a Mason Holgate, then it has obviously done it's job, even though for every John Stones there will be literally hundreds of kids that pass through the system unheard of, and one or two Jordan Clarke's or Reuben Noble-Lazarus's etc etc who almost have what it takes, but fail to clear the final hurdle. The academy needs to be a profit centre and it needs to be looked at on a regular basis to ensure it is a worthwhile investment of the club's resources and cash. However the article wants to paint football clubs, they are companies, and companies must make a profit in order to survive and invest in the future. There is a view in some quarters that football clubs are exempted from the laws of economics, simply because they attract a lot of foolish money. They are not. The best run clubs survive and prosper whilst the badly run clubs pass from hand to hand, going through fortunes as they do so. Patrick Cryne has been a very good owner. He has brought a system to the club that potentially gives us a way of competing both financially and on the field of play, but the search for the magic formula has cost him £millions. His era will soon end, but I for one hope that his legacy will continue.
