Hull City U21s/U18s 25/26

Rover - did the trialist from Donny get the 4th?

 

Trialist B got the fourth mate but don't know his name or where he was from.

 

He was on the bench v Bournemouth in the cup as well.

 

Thanks mate.

 

There's high hope for Jagielka isn't there?

 

Hope you enjoyed getting to a game Rover.

 

Glad you went Rover. I was there. 4-1 but could have been 15-1. They play some good stuff. McCarthy looks class and I liked the number 4 (Ocaya) who looked class on the ball.

 

Thanks fellas, even though I was sat at home watching it was good to see a live game again.

 

Ben Dyer I think - unless there are two Donny trialists (though Dyer is from Doncaster City - non league club)

 

A doily? How posh is that hospital?

 

There are high hopes for him at the club, but just to temper expectations, we've had U18s strikers who have scored ridiculous amounts before and either made a couple of cup appearances or never even broke through. Some names that had very good seasons in our U18s/U21s vs where they are now:

Johnny Margetts - Still playing, having come out of what he thought was injury induced early retirement, at Gainsborough. To be fair to him, he's one of the most prolific goal scorers in non-league.

Mark Cullen - scored 27 goals in the youth team in 2008, scored on his first PL start (along with Will Atkinson) and had a half decent career at League One and Two level before dropping into non-league. Now at Bamber Bridge.

Danny Emerton - scored a fair amount playing out on the wing for the reserves and youth but never made a first team appearance, joined Northampton but was let go when Chris Wilder (the **** him) became manager. Joined Ferriby, played in their season in the Conference National, still there now.

Johan ter Horst - looked good in our reserves after coming in from Folkestone Invicta, we fought off a lot of competition for his signature. Last played for Lydd Town, apparently retired.

Greg Luer - Came in from Burgess Hill Town, did well for the reserves and played a couple of cup games for us. Went to Woking after leaving us before ending up doing the rounds in non-league. Now at Horsham.

Ryan Kendall - scored a hell of a lot for the youth and reserves, was released by City and ended up at Harrogate, before dropping down to join Ferriby, where he had two spells before retiring.

I've said it before, but the gap between the first team and the reserves/youth is unimaginably big. I was humbled while playing for Loughborough Dynamo in an FA Cup 2nd Qualifying Round match. At the time, we had beaten two other teams and we drew Solihull Moors away, who were two divisions higher than us and managed by Marcus Bignot (former QPR striker). Up front for them was Lee Morris, who was coming to the end of his career but had played in the Premier League for Derby (they paid £3m for him and he scored against Man U at Old Trafford) and on the bench they had Richard Walker, who had played/scored in the Premier League for Villa and had over 200 Football League appearances. Thankfully, I was only on the bench as we lost 2-0 but even so, it was so damning to me how much better these lads were even though half of them were ten years older than most of our team. Like, it wasn't even close. On the way home we couldn't really dissect the game much because it was just a case of "well, what the **** were we supposed to do?!"

Long gone are the days when we just give lads a go because they're scoring lots of goals for the stiffs, so much more goes into whether a player can make the step up because what's on the line for the club as a whole has become far more significant the further you go up the leagues. When you think about Cairney, Cooper, Greaves, KLP and Bowen as the success stories we had (and I suppose you could include Dan James and to a lesser extent, Max Clark in that because they went on to have good careers), and then consider the literal hundreds of lads who have left our academy since our first PL stint, it shows the odds of breaking through to our first team are incredibly low and even lower are the chances you'll become a first team regular.

I guess my point is to temper expectations and look at their development. Between 18 and 21 there's still a lot of changes a player can go through in terms of ability and personality and just because they're smashing them in now doesn't mean they can do it in the Championship or even the EFL in general. Though hopefully, we do get to see some of these lads have some sort of impact on our first team, otherwise what's the point eh?

 

Ah maybe, maybe not. Think was mine was some unqualified source or other too.

 

It's in black and white though, so must be NHS.

 

See where savings could be made? Ban the doily

 

Looks like he's had three fingers amputated...how the hell is he going to eat those sarnies?

On a serious note, hope nothing too serious.