A tremendous amount of work fromRoger BatesSounds encouraging. A big thanks maybe to Chris Moyses for keeping the Youth set up going in the dark days with his own money if that was true ?
The youth system still runs separately to the Club, though?In view of the poor return of the youth system over the years,I would question the viability of developing the academy.Perhaps we would be better developing youngsters that have come from other local academies eg. Forest,Leicester ect. Remember about 40 years ago we had links with Sheffield and also the Lambton Boys club- we had quite a few players who made it in the professional game from those sources eg Phil Turner,Mick Harford.
I think many have a rose-tinted view of our academy, and they are expensive to run,even allowing for funding.There needs to be significant end product to justify the investment.Ellis Chapman may command a fee,but that has been an exception in all honesty
No, he had unsuccessful trials with Watford and Cambridge. He actually came through an organisation called EastSoccerBase in London.We've also started bringing in from other academies. Wasn't Adebayo-Smith released by Watford's system?
In view of the poor return of the youth system over the years,I would question the viability of developing the academy.Perhaps we would be better developing youngsters that have come from other local academies eg. Forest,Leicester ect. Remember about 40 years ago we had links with Sheffield and also the Lambton Boys club- we had quite a few players who made it in the professional game from those sources eg Phil Turner,Mick Harford.
I think many have a rose-tinted view of our academy, and they are expensive to run,even allowing for funding.There needs to be significant end product to justify the investment.Ellis Chapman may command a fee,but that has been an exception in all honesty
And Ellis fits in with Harry's model too as we got him after he had initially been with Leicester's academy but wanted to come home.No, he had unsuccessful trials with Watford and Cambridge. He actually came through an organisation called EastSoccerBase in London.
There is a lot of movement between academies. It isn't true that players remain at the same club all the way up to 18 when a decision is made on whether or not to offer a professional contract. Many players have been through two or even three academies by the time they become a professional. Many go through two or three academies before joining Tesco.
On the positive side, what that gives us is the ability to attract these floating (rejected) players from top academies because we have good facilities and a good set up to offer them.
As Harry suggests, quite how effective any academy system can be is open to question.