Whatever happened to our Academy?

[The Voice of the Thorpe Area 0]

At last things on the pitch are looking up. But waht concerns me is that for years now, we have been saying that we have a great Academy. In years gone by players such as Bellamy, Eadie and Green have came through this system. But that''s it!

Shackell came through in 2004, and is a good player, but certainly no Terry or Campbell. So fo the past 2 years, we have had no-one come through. Henderson and Jarvis have been on the scene for a while now, and neither have broke into the team.

Many will point to the previous management and say that NW did not give these players a chance to shine. But let''s be honest, if they were good enough, they would have played- it''s common sense.

It really does concern me that we have poured alot of money into the academy, and for the past few years we have not really seen a player of real quality come through. And when you look down Suffolk way and see Ipswich producing Clarke, Haynes, Westlake, Price, Garven, Richards, etc, it makes you wonder why haven''t we produced these players yet?

This can have a major effect on NCFC. People (including myslef at times) moan at the board not prviding the funds for new players, and in many ways this is true. But if you look at other clubs, Wolves, Ipswich, and I''m sure there are more, a good % of their side are made up of quality adacemy products. They don''t have to spend lots of money in buying as many players as we do!

Your thoughts?

[dr livingstone 0]

 it really bugs me that the scum keep producing good young players, and we dont.

perhaps we need to look at them and see what they do ?

or are or scouts and youth coaches good enough.

[......and Smith must score. 1,363]

Tumbleweed is concerned regarding NCFC''s lack of young talent coming through the Academy and names two clubs, Ipswich and Wolves, as having a greater success rate than Norwich.

Primarily the main reason must be that, geographically, we are '' out on a limb '' compared with his two examples and indeed almost any other club in the land. The ruling that states that any youngster must live within reasonable travelling distance of his guardian club puts the Canaries at a distinct disadvantage with Ipswich, and, more particularly, Wolves. With the possible exceptions of Plymouth and Carlisle most clubs have a much larger pool of talent to draw upon.

I agree that a lot of money has been poured into the Academy. I too question it''s worth but those clubs without an Academy do miss out on some ''gems '' so I think, on balance, in the long term it''s money well spent.

[The Voice of the Thorpe Area 0]

[quote user="......and Smith must score."]

Tumbleweed is concerned regarding NCFC''s lack of young talent coming through the Academy and names two clubs, Ipswich and Wolves, as having a greater success rate than Norwich.

Primarily the main reason must be that, geographically, we are '' out on a limb '' compared with his two examples and indeed almost any other club in the land. The ruling that states that any youngster must live within reasonable travelling distance of his guardian club puts the Canaries at a distinct disadvantage with Ipswich, and, more particularly, Wolves. With the possible exceptions of Plymouth and Carlisle most clubs have a much larger pool of talent to draw upon.

I agree that a lot of money has been poured into the Academy. I too question it''s worth but those clubs without an Academy do miss out on some ''gems '' so I think, on balance, in the long term it''s money well spent.

[/quote]

Don''t get me wrong, I certainly do not want the academy to be closed down. Geographically, yes, we are out of the way, and I did not know about this ruling.

But my concerns are still there, something must be done, I do not buy the exuse that just beacuse geographically we are out of the way, it didn''t stop us producing Green, Bellamy and Eadie!

[Huddy 0]

 

The rule is a newish one. ]

None of the 3 players you mentioned thorpe began their life in East Anglia

Green is from Surrey

Eadie was from Wiltshire

Bellamy started at Ryll FC in Wales

So we are limited because it is now harder for us to pick out the bellamy''s from a young age. We have signed some older youngsters though ( iguess the rule only applys to under 16''s or something)

[apprentice 0]

[quote user="Matt Hudson"]

 

The rule is a newish one. ]

None of the 3 players you mentioned thorpe began their life in East Anglia

Green is from Surrey

Eadie was from Wiltshire

Bellamy started at Ryll FC in Wales

So we are limited because it is now harder for us to pick out the bellamy''s from a young age. We have signed some older youngsters though ( iguess the rule only applys to under 16''s or something)

[/quote]

You are quite right, the rule is the player must live within 90mins travelling time of Norwich and as the youngsters train a couple of times a week and at weekends it would be unfair to expect a 12-13 year old to be able to manage this with all their school work.  The 90 mins travelling time is void when a player signs a scholarship (16 years old and left school) as they are moved into digs within the area.  There are always players released and not offered a scholarship ie Danny Haynes from Charlton, turned down Norwich went to scum.  Shabaz Abidoo released from Arsenal,  turned down Nowich signed for QPR (to get first team football), but at least Andrew Cave Brown did sign for us when released by Charlton.   So there are players out there but I believe it was the lack of  a chance of first team football why players dont sign for us (hopefully now they will be given an opportunity - IF THEY ARE GOOD ENOUGH under PG).  It appears that Norwich are going further afield now as they have signed scholars from Scotland and Ireland as well as Denmark. 

[Yellow Shrimper 0]

I''ve heard it said that an Academy is successful if it produces 1 1st

team player each year; that doesn''t seem unreasonable to me. We have

produced Shacks 23, Hendo 21, Ryan J 20, Danny Crow 20, Robert Eagle

19, Rossi 18, Joe Lewis 18, Andrew Cave-Brown  18 & 

Michael Spillane 17. In addition I think Chris Martin &  Pat

Bexfield are good enough to be offered pro contracts &  Mark

O''Toole & Damon Lathrope look good prospects from this year''s

Academy intake. The problem  is, I guesss, that of all these only

Shacks has really made his mark on the 1st team so far (although I''m

confident Michael Spillane will follow in his footsteps). So it seems

we''ve produced plenty of fringe players but, to date, not enough who''ve

really made the breakthrough. Unfortunately I''m not clever enough to

know the reasons - I''m sure others will have their views

[thefutureisyellow 0]

I can tell you from personal experience that things are not well in our Accadamy.We get updates in programs from the Accadamy Director about achievements of the junior teams, good for the moral for the boys concerned but the reality is that there is a lot of spin associated with this. Teams regularly go abroad sponsored by FONCY who do a fantastic job, but we rarly win anything of note. We may well lose out on a cup in a tournament and perhaps go on to win the Shield, ie a second rate tournament for those teams knockes out from the cup, but this is reported as some great victory.

The accadamy is obsessed with size and smaller more skillful boys are often released in favour of the big strong types. Boys develop at different speeds but there is little recognition of this and we lose potential stars because they are too small.This is cerainly what is happening with u15/16`s and does not bode well for 2, 3 or 4 years time.

A lot of this size thing is a legacy of Worthington, Peter Grant needs to have a look at whats going on and hopefully change the current thinking.

[Ulf Ottosson 0]

Yes as  previoused stated the 90 minute rule has killed us in terms of youngsters whereas the scummers can pull in most of London. Whereas we get the cream of norfolk

The question I want to know is was this rule introduced before or after we sent millions on the facilities!!!

[lucky green trainers 0]

[quote user="thefutureisyellow"]

I can tell you from personal experience that things are not well in our Accadamy.We get updates in programs from the Accadamy Director about achievements of the junior teams, good for the moral for the boys concerned but the reality is that there is a lot of spin associated with this. Teams regularly go abroad sponsored by FONCY who do a fantastic job, but we rarly win anything of note. We may well lose out on a cup in a tournament and perhaps go on to win the Shield, ie a second rate tournament for those teams knockes out from the cup, but this is reported as some great victory.

The accadamy is obsessed with size and smaller more skillful boys are often released in favour of the big strong types. Boys develop at different speeds but there is little recognition of this and we lose potential stars because they are too small.This is cerainly what is happening with u15/16`s and does not bode well for 2, 3 or 4 years time.

A lot of this size thing is a legacy of Worthington, Peter Grant needs to have a look at whats going on and hopefully change the current thinking.

[/quote]heard a similar story from a speaker who said he was connected with the youth set up during the st. andrews hall meeting last year.  i''ve also heard third hand from somebody working within the academy, that PG has shown up and watched his training sessions with the youngsters, something that worthy never did apparently.PG seems to be raising morale around the entire club - long may it continue.

[Mello Yello 2,306]

The ''Academy'' was purely academic......hopefully, PG will inject a new impetus and motivation........[Y]

[Buncey 1]

It''s commonly regarded that if you are not over 6 foot than you are unlikely to get a trial these days for the academy. I have a couple of mates who have been turned down and given up on getting noticed by norwich due to this. But we have got some promising young players coming through, although the current bunch are not much to write home about, and hopefully in the future they might prove successful.

[Hump 0]

I believe that if you are good enough you are big enough. comments that small boys get released is usually that they are not up to the required standard. Look at some of the better youth players at present and some of the ones breaking through such as Eagle Fisk and Bexfield small players but given the chance. I think things are changing and we give the opportunity for these players to mature.

I have said before the big ones at a young age tend not to develop because they have things on the pitch there own way, whereas the small ones learn to scrap for everything and have to fight to suceed,something you see in later years.

 

[Balham Yellow 0]

The 90 minute rule doesn''t legislate as to form of transport.  Didn''t Man Utd take Kalam Mooniaruck from our academy, ensuring that they met the conditions by flying him to Manchester in a helicopter?

[anothatracksuitmanager 0]

losing key coaches didn''t help, or the fact that previous manager didn''t want to give them opportunities.