I see we have a team entered in League 2 for the U21 - Now correct me if I am wrong, wasn't AKCJ on here telling us how great the set up was at Leicester and how they had category one status? Well they were denied if so and are in the same division as us... http://www.leeds.vitalfootball.co.uk/article.asp?a=289229
No idea mate, I don't understand the ins and outs of it, I just vaguely remember AKCJ using their academy category one status as a reason why players would wish to join them.
By caring about their young players and not being total amateurs. Those three clubs have each retained ten times as many good young players as us over the last half-decade, I'll bet you.
To get cat 1 status you need to have acredited academy leadership - we don't anymore and if you remember last year we sacked the bloke in charge and took 8-months to find a replacement, who then jacked at the end of the season. NR is now running them? On top of that education becomes part of the academy and we closed ours down. Bates also closed a lot of other parts of the academy down too, so we only have the bare bones left these days. Thanks Bates you have destroyed the blueprint that all the top clubs now copy
Under new rules we can not stop larger clubs taking our best players, but in practice I truly believe that any youngster at Leeds stands a far higher chance of making the grade than Man City or Chelsea. You only need to look at Milner, Lennon and Carson all players earning top dollar at top clubs, whilst those that switched academies early in their careers are no where to be seen. I have a feeling that not spending millions on pleasing the FA to get a status might work out alright, as long as we actually invest time and resources into the youth set up.
Lennon, Milner etc were products of a fantastic academy which we don't have anymore. Lees is pretty good but can you compare him to Woodgate, can you put white in the same shoes as a young Ian Harte, is Delph the same as Speed, or is Howson in the same league as Kewill. The young striker we have isn't in the same league as Smithy. Why, because the top coaches we had under Paul Harte and later have been replaced with mediocrity to save money. Plus the fact that anyone who shows signs of being a good prospect are sold. Could lees, Howson, Delph have come out as better players than they did - the answer is yes they could and would have, if bates hadn't slashed the budget. We could have been building a great team around these kids instead of giving them a half schooling and then flogging them. I'm a massive Leeds fan and have been for over 40-years, but if my boy had the choice between Leeds and Man City it's a no brainer, he'd be in Manchester getting coached, schooled and building a career.
Watford fan in peace (honest). Have to say, I am surprised you are not in it with your record, but I guess this is down to a large decrease in investment into your academy? As to how we are in there, if you know about our academy, you would understand why. We do invest a lot of money into it (a lot for a club our size) and we do get the rewards from it. Last season, we had our 50th player to play for the first team who's been promoted from our academy since it was introduced about 13/14 years ago. Not many teams can boast of a record like that - but at a club like us, it has been very much needed! It is also an extremely well-run Academy, and rather unique in the fact that we have a partneship with a school, which means a lot more training time with the players, so they can do their schooling and training in one place. We have had a number of clubs and Associations come to our club to look round, and we even had Ajax comment on how impressed they are with the set up, saying we have more time with the kids than they do! If you are interested, Google Harefield Academy. It's not only football they do there either! Obviously we won't get or produce the 'best' youngsters as we are in competition with the North London clubs, but it is certainly beneficial to us! We have even had players stay with us rather than go to a few of the big clubs, knowing their football education is perfectly fine where they are! Once you guys get a decent owner, willing to invest, I would assume they will go all out to improve the academy and try to get Cat 1 status!
