Youth Academy

[Stany 0]

Hi all!

I''ve been reading this forum for the past 5 or 6 years and finally took the plunge to sign up and join!

The youth academy has been a largely talked about issue over the past few seasons and as Green was the last player to make the big time that we have produced it has come under large scrutiny. I am good friends with Bally Smart and he was unlucky not to be given more of a chance, however I feel from what I have seen of the youngsters this season and towards the end of last season, it appears that there is a solid crop slowly emerging. Whether they get the chance to show what they are capable of remains to be seen.

[norfolkbroadslim 223]

Are any of them really good enough to make the grade?  I don''t know what has happened with the Youth Academy over recent years.  You could say something is not right.  Is it the coaching?  The way they are being prepared?  Lack of talent?

Over the last few years we must have one of the worst ratios of youth players becoming regular first team players of, well pretty much any team in the football league.

If we don''t get any investment, some of them may get their chance next season and who knows, they may rise to the challenge.

[Stany 0]

The main reason I think is down to the radius from where you can recruit players from. The likes of Llewellyn, Bellamy, Eadie and Johnson all came from Wales and Bristol but we are unable to recruit from these areas now, one of the disadvantages of being stuck out on the limb! I think the tactic zone might be starting to pay dividends because obviously it wasn''t going to be a quick fix, but it has been in operation for several seasons now and i think that at least 4 of the current under 18''s side have a decent chance of making it.

As Roeder said the other day, the last Norfolk born footballer to come through the academy was Danny Mills, maybe we need to improve from a grass roots level, starting at Sunday league?

[canary cherub 1]

[quote user="The only way is up"]

As Roeder said the other day, the last Norfolk born footballer to come through the academy was Danny Mills, maybe we need to improve from a grass roots level, starting at Sunday league?

[/quote]

There''s two ways of looking at this.  Maybe there''s something about Norfolk that makes our youngsters physically incapable or temperamentally unsuited to professional football, or maybe the people in charge at the club (who mostly aren''t from Norfolk) are a bit prejudiced? 

 

[Yellowbeagle 0]

A lot of us played football throughout our younger lives and from my experience there isnt a great deal of difference accross the country in technical levels, i feel it comes down to a difference in attitude. What i would say is that the urgency for young people in norfolk to make it are footballers isnt in general as urgently felt as in poor areas up north or in london estates. It was quite a few years ago now since i played, but many of my team mates at youth level had lots of other things they were interested in aswell as football, which is not a bad thing at a personal level for them. I remember our keeper when i was 15 was asked to go and have a trial in a match for Norwich Youth and he said he couldnt as he had a game for us, he just wasnt interested in becoming a footballer.

But while working in London friends who came from london estates had children who lived, breathed and ate football, it was like an escape route, whereas in Norfolk the kids dont have alot to escape from apart from being a bit bored.

There are other issues which might affect us aswell, we have an elderly population in Norfolk, so there just arnt as many kids in the area. Sunday league coaching is often done by dads and I have seen (not always) some absolutley terrible things being taught to kids just to get a win, rather than develop the right thing to do on the pitch, basically it''s the blind leading the blind, the FA if serious about grass roots football would have more coaching courses running and encourgae youth team clubs to get all dads invloved on the courses. Schools also are too are more interested in winning cups for the prestige of the school than actually developing boys footballing ability, playing for my high school I never had one bit of good advice from the teacher who ran the team, he would just let us get on with it.

Of course all of this was a while ago. Anyway didnt mean to run on as much as i have. And not saying i have the definitive answer either.

[Old Shuck 183]

Doesn''t the recruiting players from within a certain distance from the club only apply to players who are 16 or under?

After all, the Prem clubs are forever signing 17, 18 year olds from France, Spain etc.

Hope someone can clarify that, but don''t like this "oh woe, there are no good footballers in Norfolk" line, as, once they are a certain age, you can go anywhere and sign anyone. The problem then, of course, is that if they are good enough by then, someone else has got them, but it would be nice to think we could devote some time and resources to keeping on top of the >16 network, especially players that are released by bigger clubs, naturally, coming from Arsenal (remember Brian McGovern?), Chelsea or Man Utd doesn''t mean that they are going to be good enough anyway (just as it follows that if Chelsea, or anyone, take Jed Steer from us, he''ll be a worldbeater) but it must be near the top of our priorities in player recruitment. Do we have a good scouting presence in Southern Ireland for example? Again, nothing is guaranteed-but there must be some more Kevin Doyle''s out there.

If we can''t produce our own, for whatever reasons, we can still bring on those that have been rejected by other clubs and maybe they will have a hunger and motivation that others won''t?

[Yellowbeagle 0]

[quote user="Old Shuck"]

Doesn''t the recruiting players from within a certain distance from the club only apply to players who are 16 or under?

After all, the Prem clubs are forever signing 17, 18 year olds from France, Spain etc.

Hope someone can clarify that, but don''t like this "oh woe, there are no good footballers in Norfolk" line, as, once they are a certain age, you can go anywhere and sign anyone. The problem then, of course, is that if they are good enough by then, someone else has got them, but it would be nice to think we could devote some time and resources to keeping on top of the >16 network, especially players that are released by bigger clubs, naturally, coming from Arsenal (remember Brian McGovern?), Chelsea or Man Utd doesn''t mean that they are going to be good enough anyway (just as it follows that if Chelsea, or anyone, take Jed Steer from us, he''ll be a worldbeater) but it must be near the top of our priorities in player recruitment. Do we have a good scouting presence in Southern Ireland for example? Again, nothing is guaranteed-but there must be some more Kevin Doyle''s out there.

If we can''t produce our own, for whatever reasons, we can still bring on those that have been rejected by other clubs and maybe they will have a hunger and motivation that others won''t?

[/quote]

Your right, it does apply to over 16''s who can move anywhere and we could trial young players released by premier league teams. I guess this begs the question are the resources plowed into a youth system that doesnt produce anyone being well spent. I for one would hate to see the tradition of developing youth players die, though.

Unfortuneatly it appears that youth systems accross the country are not developing players, otherwise the young players released by the big premier league teams each season would be littering the lower leagues and if they were of a good standard then the lower leagues would be of a higher standard than they are currently.

I not sure but isnt it our Academy status that means we cant take players from outside of 90mins travelling, if we were to ditch the status can we then pick from across the uk aswell as still looking at prospects in our own county? Perhaps someone knows.

[Fromage Frais 10]

I remember seeing someware that genetically people in Norfolk are some of the tallest in the country.Also is it me or do we seem good at producing goalkeepers especially recently with Lewis, rudd etc which ties in with the above.Additionally from a statistical point of view (trying not to sound racisit)we have less of a racial mix in Norfolk and thus the 11-20% of professional footballers  (premier league lower leagues are mosre even) who are classes as black/mixed at the top level is not replicated in Norfolk.  There are arguments that go with either genetics or social grounding predisposing beig the reasons for black folks overrepresentation in the premier league but its a fact.I remember reading something a good time ago about the methods used to scout players for Ajax (when they where unrivalled for churning our excellent players).  Maybe i remember it incorrectly but they had a critea that was called spits/sprints or somthing like that.

• Speed
• Physicality
• Intelligence
• Technique
• Stamina

The long and short of it is that you can make a young player play better, run longer and fit into a system but you cannot make him 6/3 and super fast.  The game is so fast now and Ajax where are the vangard of this yes their are exceptions but look at the top flight more fast players than slow.  Many of the new youngsters coming through lack the physical attributes to give the impression that they will proceed further than journeyman.    Though all things considered the fact that Chelsea are said to be sniffing round our academy for yougsters tells you somthing to get the top talent you have to go global and that one in a million make a very good professional standard footballer.