With higher revenue secured fom our return to the Premier League, I sincerely hope the club support Pennock to the hilt and try and achieve academy 1 status; that should be a fundamental foundation for our future, and a lasting legacy for the club for many years to come, irrsepective of who owns the club! Let's get a few more 'Tymons' up to the first team squad
I sincerely hope the Allams (or even better, new owners) use some of the money to build an indoor football facility as soon as is humanly possible so they can return the Airco Arena back to it's intended community use and with a damn big apology. I think it's great that the Academy has finally been given backing, but I also think the Airco scandal was absolutely appalling. And sorry to say but Pennock and anyone else in positions of power are guilty by association. All following Ehab's lead of doing what's morally right ... for them.
The Academy is one of only a few things we can give the owners credit for, it needs continued investment to build it into the preferred choice for all young prospects throughout Yorkshire.
Shameful as the whole Airco fiasco was, I don't see any prospect of it being reversed, whoever is in charge.
Minimum spend of £2.3m a year, one coach for every eight players, a full size floodlight grass outdoor pitch and a full size indoor pitch and various treatment/training suites.
We're still only tennants at our current academy venue aren't we? Hard to believe 4 seasons in the top flight and we haven't really been able to facilitate building our own dedicated training facility.
To build a complete new set up is going to cost a bomb innit. Where is the next question? I doubt there is anywhere in the Hull boundary for it.
The Airco Arena filled with local sports clubs is good for business. Especially sports clubs with young people and their parents. Its much better than being used occasionally by Hull City's academy. If Ehab sells to the Americans I can see it being converted back into what it was, or else demolished and replaced by something similar.
I was thinking along these lines as well. If there was someone with more ambition to make us bigger rather than just take the short term money it could be possible, but unfortunately I doubt we'll have that kind of person involved with the club.
Was it anymore 'shameful' then Hull City Council terminating the contracts of all the ice skating coaches at Hull Ice Arena? All of whom actually rented the arena off HCC to coach local kids?
If only we could vote the Allams out like we can the City Councillors. To answer your question, yes it was more shameful. On a shameful scale of 1 to 10 I'd put the City Council's behaviour as a 5 and the Allams' as an 8. Just to be clear I haven't included any illegal activity on the scale.
If the Allams stay in charge, I'd be perfectly happy with buying depth players from Championship or SPL or wherever, and ploughing most of our revenue into the Academy and servicing the debt. Our first XI, when fit, is good enough for the PL, it was just our lack of depth in 2014/15 that hurt. Bring in a half-decent loan striker, buy some depth from the Championship with a budget of maybe 10m (buy 3-4 players) and go from there. If we go down, we go down, but we wouldn't have as much pressure to sell, debt would be down, and hopefully there would be a lasting impact on the Academy.
The other key benefit of Cat 1 is that the FA allow the club to 'formally' attract players from any other club or association nationally, so it significantly widens 'the net' to attract the best talent. I know we have attracted some players over recent months, thats all down to Pennocks connections; to some extent therefore it would enable him to move forward without one hand tied behind his back
