Where would the FA get the money from, who would sponsor a team of 8 year olds and what kind of gates do you think they would fetch? Because I don't think that would even scratch the surface of what would be required. Seemed an unnecessarily negative characterisation if you don't think that, but ok.
All I am saying is everyone is doing it, even Bristol themselves. It's the system that is wrong(the new one even worse).
The FA is rolling in money. If they could be bothered, they could fund it. Perhaps these regional centres of excellence could be an amalgamation of diferent local FA's. E.g. a southern regional centre of excellence, with support from the Hampshire FA, the Dorset FA and the Sussex FA, a south east FA with support from the Kent FA and the Surrey FA, a south west centre of excellence with support from the Cornwall FA, Devon FA and Somerset FA, etc, etc. No, I mean current Hampshire Senior Cup games. Some of them get three figure crowds. Interestingly Havant & Waterlooville tickets were more for a Hampshire Cup game than Farnborough league tickets cost, craaaazy
I agree. The southern Centre can be at Staplewood. They pay saints loads to use our facilities, and we skim the best players off the top. Everybody wins.
The game is the game. We have nicked lads from Plymouth and Notts County loads of times before and without a thought. Bigger teams took players from us for cheap when we were in the football league and we bitched and moaned about it. It will almost certainly always be unfair. For them to say we're cheating because of Bath is ignorance, because it's clearly legal. Unfortunate for them, but that's the way it is. The EPP will DEFINITELY make it more unfair though, so I sympathise for that. Omar comin' yo.
Total County FA annual budget is around £15m shared around the 50-odd counties (£300k average). minimum spend for a category 1 academy is £2.3m per club.
I convinced my mate to do this and he has started. He coaches young kids, but more importantly he coaches local town teams coaches on how to coach. They don't listen much though. I think it is the Viking influence in us.
Sauce: http://www.thefa.com/~/media/files/pdf/the-fa-2013-14/fa-report-financial-2012.ashx (it's 1 year old figures I accept)
Nice, yeah you can't get through to 100% of people (some people have real world jobs I suppose), but for the willing we can help a lot just with a few general pointers. Also need to get more young people into the game, particularly if they are in the latter stage of their academy career and would drop out otherwise. Needless to say, it's mostly a question of finding money. Soap box away.
Thanks. You really don't know me though. Way too much detail; I may try and find the executive summary later ... if it's short!!
Sorry FLT.......We have had a strong connection for better Youth training facilities Since the late 50's when Mr Horsefield was running it. Although it was not called an academy in those days. We were in Div three then. We improved the coaching side considerably in the 60's and 70's and started to be come known from probably the mid 80's for the excellence of the facilities and the players it was producing. So for me they had exactly the same opportunities as Saints did. Incidentally the earlier dates I have quoted are correct from personal experience.
Sorry Beddytare, forgot you'd be thinking about a few decades before my time Taking all that into consideration, you are correct. I was thinking in the last 10 years or so.
Just got back from seeing Time of My Life by Alan Ayckbourn at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre in Guildford. A drink and supper before the show in the Britannia which was still drying out from the floods. The water in the Wey was very fast flowing and very high while the water in the canal was about an inch from overflowing and there were sandbags everywhere. My Bristol City supporting friends were quite opposed to our outreach centre in Bath and we had a long conversation about how Morgan and Lallana benefitted from playing in the 1st Division for their own club rather than being on loan. I think we came to the conclusion that lower league clubs lost good local youngsters to Premier League teams who then let them languish in the reserves or loaned them out to old mates teams or other clubs from whom they were seeking a favour and not always to a club which would be in the best interests of the player. We didn't fall out over it although we did have a long conversation about who would be relegated from the Football League. They hoped it would be Bristol Rovers for some reason while I had other hopes.
Sorry for my tardy response I accept there has to be natural talent of course. My point previously was about gifted players like Le Tissier/Gazza/Lallana/Barklay etc Out of the 1000s & 1000s of kids who play football there is bound to be enough good talent to go around all 92 clubs, but it's about getting the best out of that talent and creating the best environment for the kids to flourish and giving them the best coaching. It's lazy and an easy get out for clubs like City to point the finger at the bigger clubs and say it's not fair. Instead they should be looking at themselves and asking what they could do better as a club. Chambers & JWP are obviously very good and talented players (Chambers has an exceptional 1st touch) but could anyone say with any certainty that had they both lived near a club which didn't take their academy seriously that they would both be playing international football for their respective age groups? It's that aged argument of nature versus nurture and i'm a firm believer that both players are reaching their potential because of the good coaching and opportunities provided by clubs like Southampton. As a final example i'd go for Rickie Lambert who has admitted that thanks to the facilities and infrastructure at Southampton it has given him the opportunity to be a better player. Now at Southampton a lot of the medical science/analysis comes at a cost which is at the upper end of the premier league, but there is also a culture going back through the clubs history which comes for free and could be easily adopted by any club with a long term vision and Crewe is the popular and great example of that in action on a relative shoe string
What?!! Only just seen this thread. F**k those idiots!! We all know the real reason Bristol City are ****. It's because Bristol is a rugby city. For a city of that size, I can't believe they haven't had a top class team for thirty years. Look at other cities that big; Liverpool, Leeds, Sheffield, Manchester. Bristol has a bigger population than So'ton and Pompey combined ffs! So how are they moaning about us nicking a couple of lads from another city entirely?!!! There's only one solution to this. Bristolians need to stop chasing eggs, support their football team(s) better, make their clubs more money, and thus allow for better players to be bought, and then wait for the inevitable promotions that will see their team(s) reach the Premier League. That's how it all works. It starts with the fans going to games!!
Gee Black you make it sound so easy......I believe they do have a bigger population than Pompey and Southampton combined (I have not checked so am only guessing) and probably do have perhaps a larger catchment area they could draw from than us. What they never have had it would seem is forward thinking club chairman. For all their faults at Saints years ago one thing they did realise was the advantage of a good youth coaching facility. The gates at Southampton in the early days were probably in the mid teens (late 40's to late 50's) in the 60's probably going up to around the early 20's. Bristol's gates around the same time were slightly less than that but there was a decent youth system there, probably similar to where Saints were at the time if memory serves (mid 50's on). There main problems came in the 80's they nearly went out of business but lucky for them they survived and had some relative success. They had some decent managers during the following years, Pulis was one and some decent players like Andy Cole. The trouble was when they started to have money to spare it did not go into the coaching system. Their coaching system did not move on with the times and the set up remained the same as it was in the 50's and 60's. Even when they were in the then first division for a season in the late 90's they did not see the need to spend too much money on the coaching side although they had improved it. So by the turn of the century other clubs had moved on and were way ahead of Bristol City as far as their training academy's were concerned they were just left behind. So for all their grouching now, it was their own chairman's lack of wisdom and foresight that see's them in the position they are today. If they want to put the money into their academy just as we have done, they can stop what they are saying we are doing quite easily. Mind you I don't seem to remember us having any particularly bright starlet from their area in the last few years...other than one perhaps, but we did buy him.............and from their competitors!
