Greg Luer tweeted: "Great result today beating QPR 6-2 great performance from the boys and buzzin to score a hat-trick.. Nice to be back home for the weekend!" His family were at the match and as he's a southern lad - and some of the others - I was thinking that they'd be able to stay down south. They stay in hotels before the southern matches if they are playing in the afternoon.
Thanks for all the input...reports/pics etc....on the young lads Peter. Its great to see how many promising players are coming through the youth ranks and are already getting playing time with the big boys. Pennock is doing a fantastic job with the Academy and deserves a huge amount of credit. Thanks to you and all those who keep us informed about these lads ...very encouraging!!
Maybe he doesn't want to become a manger, there are more than enough people at clubs who just want to get on with their jobs & aren't interested in managing. He's got a nice little number going there, with a good reputation. Why would he want to give that up to be shouted at on match days & given abuse by fans saying he doesn't know what he's doing & people shouting Pennock Out, starting up threads on message boards with the same thing week in & week out, riling people up & building into a giant snowball effect.
Possibly so, however he would certainly get my vote at the moment if Bruce were to leave. I would love to see him have more involvement with the first team. He's obviously got something about him for him to be motivating the U21's into such performances. Why did he leave Swansea, does anyone know? It seems a pretty sideways move at best. Maybe he left because he has ambitions to manage and felt that he wouldn't get the opportunity there. One thing's for certain, we're lucky to have him.
It's one thing to motivate players you've been presented with and that are ambitious to progress. It's quite another to motivate experienced pros or play the transfer markets.
Fair play but all future managers need to start somewhere, and sooner or later Pennock will be a manager somewhere, I'd just prefer that he was given his chance here. A similar thing was probably once said about Jose Mourinho, he hasn't done bad since being given his chance.
Exactly. Also some of these players arent "coming through" the youth ranks. 5 of the goals yesterday were bought in players. Pennock knows how to run an academy. Credit to the Allams/Bruce who know how to run a football club for bringing him in.
Does anybody actually know if Pennock has the ambition to be a first team manager and he isn't already doing his preferred job of bringing on youngsters without the hassle and stress that comes with being a manager
Agreed, football managers just can't win. Mind, they've gotta be made of stern stuff to take in a job like that and I'm sure they don't let any of it get to them.
He's doing what he enjoys and what he's clearly very good at. Not sure why some see being a first team manager as a promotion or something. He's an excellent development team manager, and at the top of his game in that area. It's like saying an ex football player should make a great manager. Some do, some dont, some want to, some are happy doing what they're doing.
While I agree with the part about doing what you enjoy and what you're good at, it is a promotion. What do you think Bruce and Pennock earn respectively?
Pennock is clearly doing an excellent job with the youth team, lets not underestimate how important this role is to us as a club. For far to long we have looked at our youth set up as being pretty poor compared to other clubs, we now clearly have someone who knows what he is doing it, why move him to a different role? At some point we need to bring through some youngsters into our first team, Pennock might be the man to help them come through.
That's all well and good as long as he has no ambitions to be a manager, if he has he'll undoubtedly be moving on again at some point. As I asked previously does anyone know why he left Swansea? Was it ambition? He appeared to move from one youth set up to another, a pretty sideways move. I suppose we could simply assume that it was for a salary increase, maybe it was. The thing is he appears to have the U21's playing a brand if football that we'd all like to see played by the first team, so I just think that it makes logical sense to move him across, or at least give him some involvement in the first team. Maybe I'm wrong as the posts that I'm reading, in the main, seem happy to keep him at his current level.
I have no doubt he may want to be a manager at some point, but just because he is brilliant in his current role it doesn't mean he will make a good manager. I say keep him in the role that he is good at, and a role that needs to become far more important.
He was a bit vague about why he left Swansea, just said he wasn't enjoying it any more... Comments (1) Hull City writer Philip Buckingham meets Tony Pennock to find out how he transformed Swansea City's academy and why the Tigers could be about to turn a similar corner. WHEN Tony Pennock assumed control of Swansea City's youth development ranks in the summer of 2008, he inherited an operation run on a shoe-string and goodwill. Pennock worked with just one other colleague and oversaw fixtures played on park pitches. The club's best youngsters invariably departed, poached by neighbours Cardiff City. The Swans were more like the ugly duckling of South Wales. "We would beg, steal and borrow just to keep going," says Pennock, recalling those nomadic early years. How times change. Tapping into the successes of a first team that had quickly risen from the fourth tier, Swansea's academy was revolutionised during Pennock's five and a half years in charge. Now housed at the enviable Landore complex, a £6m purpose-built site employing 24 full-time staff, it is an academy that is comfortably able to boast Category Two status. Pennock resigned from his post in November in search of a new challenge and that has led him to Hull City's grateful door. Appointed as the Tigers' academy manager in late February, the 43-year-old has been tasked with repeating the overhaul he led at Swansea. "There are massive, massive similarities," Pennock told the Mail. "The history of the two clubs, the culture of the area. People have lost their jobs but the football club remains a focal point of the area. "Historically, there wasn't always a lot of investment in youth development at either club and it's been very difficult to keep up with the first team. That's natural when you've come from the bottom of the Football League. "But I could see straight away the potential of this club and that's what made the decision easy for me. "There are so many similarities to Swansea and we're in a great position to make a statement as a club." Pennock's arrival marks a potential watershed in City's history. For all the strides made in earning another season in the Premier League, a youth system led by the long-serving Billy Russell has been asked to perform under stifling financial constraints. Historic under-investment has left City lagging far behind in the modern world of Elite Player Performance Plans (EPPP). While Premier League rivals rear their young against one another, the Category Three rating of City's academy leaves them forced to compete against Grimsby Town, Lincoln City and Burton Albion in the North East Conference of the Youth Alliance League. At long last, City have finally begun to address the fault-lines that undermine all ambitions for progress. Relocating from the cherished but inadequate Ideal Standard site on County Road North to the state-of-the-art Bishop Burton College this week, City will make their biggest leap yet towards that all-important Category Two academy status. Pennock hopes this is the start of a journey he witnessed first-hand at Swansea. With foundations already far more impressive than the ones he inherited there, the 43-year-old sees no reason why that progress cannot be mirrored here in East Yorkshire. "You've only got to look at the investment to see what the owners want to do," said Pennock. "When I started I would have been the 10th full-time member of staff but soon we'll be over 20. "I'm moving 300 miles away from my family. I'm not going to come here just to be in a job, that would be the wrong thing to do for me and the club. "The club are committed to moving the academy forward and wants to be a Category Two as soon as we can. "Will we ever have 11 Hull lads born and bred? I very much doubt it. But in the main we want to give local lads the best opportunity to be professionals. "To do that we have to be out in the community and have a presence. When you've only got three or four members of staff, as has been the case in the past, it's impossible to do that. "No matter what local perception is of the academy, without investment you will find it difficult. Apart from the last couple of years, this club has probably only lived off the Football League funding that every club has. "We want to do the best we can and at the end of the day I'll be accountable. If it doesn't work out then I'll have to pay the consequences of that." Pennock accepts there is much work to be done before City can compete with the Premier League's best. Instead, a level standing with Sheffield United, Barnsley and Huddersfield Town is the first target. It will all take time but the value of a strong academy has now been noted. "It all comes down to the vision for the whole club," added Pennock. "If there's no pathway for the kids then there's no point having an academy. Some clubs perhaps do it just as a token gesture to keep people happy. But if you're going to do it you might as well do it right because in the long-term the club benefits. "Swansea sold Joe Allen to Liverpool for £15m and it paid for all the new training facilities. Simple as. "Once you pay money on the infrastructure, and to Swansea's credit they have, you don't have to fork out that money again. It's there. Huw Jenkins (chairman) and the board have left a legacy there. "Three years ago the only thing the club owned were the players. The council owns the stadium, but now they've got two fantastic facilities that attract players to come and play for you." The similarities between the two clubs is clear. Now it is up to Pennock to usher in another new dawn. TONY Pennock believes the thrill of overseeing a rookie's graduation into the first-team fold is "the best feeling in football," eclipsing all he achieved during 20 years as a player. Hull City's academy manager has been challenged to bring through the club's next generation of talent in East Yorkshire and repeat the success enjoyed at Swansea City. Ben Davies and Jazz Richards were the big success stories of Pennock's time at the Liberty Stadium. Both full-backs have played Premier League football for the Swans and won full international honours with Wales. The stellar achievements of Davies and Richards were beyond those of Pennock in a goalkeeping career that included spells with Wigan, Hereford and Yeovil, but his greatest satisfaction has come from others. "There's nothing better than seeing a lad you've helped bring up walking out on that pitch," he said. "Whether they started at 9 or 12, coming up through the system and then into the first team, it's the best feeling in football for me. "I take more pleasure in seeing a young lad represent the first team than I ever got as a player. No doubt about it." Pennock brings a colourful history with him to the KC Stadium. After starting out as a youngster with Stockport County, his most cherished days came on a part-time contract with Yeovil Town. There he juggled playing with a role as a financial consultant before eventually returning to hometown club Swansea in 2006 as a goalkeeping coach, via spells with Rushden and Diamonds, Farnborough and Carmarthen. The thread that has run through Pennock's adult life is coaching. He said: "I was about 17, playing local league football, and one of the men playing in the team with me gave me a little part-time job in his summer training camps. "I went away to play after that but I always enjoyed coaching. It was in my late 20s when I dropped out of the Football League and had six years as a financial consultant. I got made redundant, which was great looking back, and had a spell just going around schools coaching kids. "I started doing my badges then and although I went back full-time with Rushden & Diamonds, I knew coaching was what I wanted to do." Pennock found his niche with Swansea from 2008 when he was appointed to lead the club's struggling academy. He reflects on five and a half happy years at home in South Wales, but says his resignation in November was a must to restore a lost spring to his step. He added: "It was always my dream job working for my hometown club, but I got to the stage where I wasn't enjoying going in anymore. "I've always said to the players if you don't enjoy what you're doing then you're in the wrong place. I felt it would have been hypocritical if I didn't do the same myself. "When I started there in 2008 it was me and one other member of staff. When I walked away there were 24 full-time staff, playing Category Two football for the second year running. We also had a number of lads who made their debuts and played Premier League football. "I'm not criticising the people who were there before because I had the backing of the club to move forward. Hopefully we can do that here." http://www.hulldailymail.co.uk/Hull...tory-21281651-detail/story.html#ixzz3oAeuv3MS
