I am always warning about the dangers on relying too much on bringing our own players through. My argument being that it is so hard to predict what youths from 14 to 18 will be like in their early twenties when it is time to break into the first team squad. Not so much re: natural talent, ball skills etc, These will probably remain with them, but physical development, determination, ability to bounce back from injuries and other setbacks, and game-reading skills at the higher level.. So it is only fair to post this comment which directly counters all that. 30 months ago our under-18s lost narrowly (and a bit unluckily since we conceded the decider when we only had 10 men) to Manchester Utd in the FA Youth Cup Quarter-Final Looking at our named 16 that day, I am surprised at how many are still with us for the new season and must therefore still have a chance of establishing themselves here: Ajayi and Poyet have already moved on to better things, which reflects well on those who spotted them for us. Cousins is established in the first team and Harriott, Piggott, Lennon and Fox have also played quite a few League games between them. Osborne, Phillips, Muldoon, Sho-Silva, Gerard, and Holmes-Dennis should be regulars for our under-21s and all but Osborne are still only u-20s.. Azeez has just gone to Wimbledon, and Ellis Brown to Southend. Only Tom Derry (Eastborne) is no longer with a League club. So only three have so far been "rejected". That seems a very low percentage. I think one reason is that it just happened to be a vintage crop. I can see u-18s moving up to our Development Squad in twos, threes and fours each season from now on, not fourteen in two years as happened then. Also I think Nathan Jones did a great job keeping them focussed. I have posted elsewhere about our apparent new trend of snapping up big clubs' "cast-offs". I think that may play a bigger part in the future. More cost-effective.
Good piece Eddie... How many of the lads who make a first team appearance do you reckon will still be with us 12/18 months after said appearance...? As a life long Charlton fan nothing makes me happier that to see a home grown talent burst through into the first team. However, on the flip side nothing (in football) depresses me more than seeing one of these promising youngsters poached from us for a bag of training cones and a pat on the head...!! I don't begrudge any young player for making a move for more dough if it's on the table, but clubs who spend time and money developing them need to be properly compensated...!! Surely the lack of fair compensation for these players is a major contributing factor for why so many league clubs have scrapped their youth systems. And people wonder why the national team is ****ed.
I was at that game and to be honest we were the better team. The only reason we lost was the pitch was to big, our players were out on their feet at the end of it. Poyet, tobi and Jack Barmby for United were the stand out players.
Very interesting original post Eventually English football will wake up the fact that allowing foreign ownership of clubs is not conducive to the long term good of the domestic game. Until then, expect our slide to continue unabated. At the moment you won't get a hearing for that viewpoint at Charlton, but when it sours with RD, it will sour quickly.
Correct. Short-term greed by the Premiership and the FA is killing the game at grassroots. The Premiership is like a cancer, a cell which grows ever larger and stronger by draining the host body, but will end up killing everything including itself.
I wonder how many of the Utd team are still with them? Too much hassle for me to try and research that, but as far as I know none of them have made a first-team appearance.
We were the better team for most of the match but the players physically lost it in the last ten minutes, if I remember correctly at least 3 of them were treated for cramp I wasn't using it as an excuse, more high lighting the fact that they more than matched a good United side for the majority of the game.
One we have let go not mentioned here is Bradley Jordan, captain of our u21s for the past two years. Don't know why he was not in the FA Youth Cup squad that day. Maybe unfit? I have not heard that he has got fixed up yet. He finished last season on loan at Forest Green. I think Conference is the best he can hope for. Just noticed we had no reserve keeper in that cup squad. We do run light on keepers compared with most clubs. 17-year-old Mitou is our reserve in Spain.
A very well researched, forensic analysis of that crop of players, Eddie. Kudos to you for that. I don't think I need re-iterate my personal feelings about the Premiership and the current state of the England national team, rather, we should keep the focus on Charlton Athletic with this thread. We have always been a club capable of finding good young talent and nurturing it up to league standard, only to see it poached by bigger, wealthier clubs. Ever has it thus been so, at least in my lifetime. The malaise goes all the way back to the 1950's when we were a great club, but with an ageing squad. We should have invested in team rebuilding then and stayed at the top of the English game. Had we done that, we could have today been the big club poaching other teams young talent rather than the other way round. I really thought we had broken the mould during the Curbishley years, but we all know how that worked out, don't we..? And so it's back to square one. As it is very unlikely that some multi billionaire with the ambition to splurge money on taking a moderate second tier English football club to the promised land of the upper reaches of English football and beyond , a la Manchester City, I'm afraid we're going to have to carry on finding and developing youngsters and getting the best out of them that we can while we have them. Who knows.... we may get lucky and produce a "golden generation" (the current hottest buzz word in sport), that develops enough esprit du corps to want to stay together and build something here, but I wouldn't hold my breath. English football, in the dog-eat-dog world of the 21st century just isn't like that.
It appears that you are right, given our struggle to find acceptable (to us) owners. But I have never understood why. We have a newish stadium, a training ground, very small debt compared with most clubs, a good reputation in the community (which, while scorned by many here, could be important in attracting an overseas buyer who wants to pose as a "pillar of the community") and a flourishing academy. Most important of all, we have a huge catchment area of up to two million potential fans and with little competition (not like in North or West London or Manchester, Birmingham or Liverpool). The guys who have bought Bournemouth or Norwich know that there is a limit beyond which they cannot grow, and that their best players will always leave for bigger clubs. That need not apply to us. Everyone is saying that clubs have to be run as businesses. That is only partially true. Of course the owners must be careful not to waste money and should employ modern business practices and management techniques. But most businesses exist to make a profit for the owners. No-one in their right mind is going to buy a football club with a view to making money. There are safer and easier ways to do that. Usually the only way to make money out of a football club is by unethical or illegal practices (usually asset stripping). The FA and Government could put a stop to that by making it impossible for owners to take out more than they put in (adjusted for currency rates). The other reason why football clubs should not be run as businesses is that they have a captive clientele. If I don't like the service, selection or prices at one supermarket I will patronise another one. But if we lose a string of matches I am not going to suddenly start supporting Millwall. Of course, that effect does happen, but on average it takes a generation whereas most businesses cannot look that far ahead. Most of these billionaires who buy football clubs do so for reasons of vanity or prestige or because they are genuine fans. Most of them don't need the money. We have all invested money in our hobbies as kids, buying stamps, or records, or toys. Very rarely did we get our money back (in real terms). These guys are just big kids. I just hope RD will sell out one day to one such. I am just not sure if that is more likely to happen if we flourish or if we fail.
I watched it on a link, and as I remember it Poyet was below par, due to impending appendicitis. Weren't we down to10 men when they got a late winner? The biased United commentator got on my nerves too.
