Greg Dyke made some interesting points about English football last week. A major concern must be the recent failures of English sides in tournaments and the apparent lack of young English players coming through. Mr Dyke mentioned that the FA would be looking at several areas, including quotas over the coming months. Here is what I think we should do: ⢠Quotas â I appreciate that applying a quota rule to our leagues would contravene European law, but I think itâs essential. Our young talent is being blocked by cheap foreign imports. I would implement a rule saying that at least 6 players in the starting XI of each game must be qualified to play for England. The rule to be relaxed for Welsh sides to be English or Welsh. This would be applied to all English leagues and domestic cup competitions). ⢠Regard the U21, U20 tournaments as being important to the development of our young players and take the strongest team possible ⢠All England teams (all age groups) to play in a similar way ⢠Reduce the size of the Premier League to 18 ( at the same time restructure League 2 and the Conference to be League 2 North and South) ⢠Implement a mid-winter break (and ban teams from playing overseas friendlies during that break) ⢠Restrict the number of overseas players entering our Academies (max of 2 per club per age group) ⢠Coaching emphasis on youngsters to concentrate on technical skills ⢠Change of culture in identifying good young players which currently seems to be about size, pace and power (Messi, Xavi and Iniesta are not big!!) ⢠Small sided games/pitches to be extended to older age groups - 13-14 years. This keeps the emphasis on technique, not about who can kick it the furthest. ⢠Youth coaches to be encouraged to play ALL kids not just the best ones (you donât get better by sitting on the bench). ⢠Winning is not the be all and end all at that age â more important to teach kids how to play and enjoy it ⢠More Premiership money to be ploughed into grass roots youth football â perhaps a FA levy which the FA could distribute to youth set ups that meet itâs youth policy criteria ⢠Work with the Government to enhance school sports ⢠Train our coaches better, including making senior badges harder to achieve
Interesting post. Some points I agree with others I don't 1. English Football - How can we change it? ⢠Quotas â I appreciate that applying a quota rule to our leagues would contravene European law, but I think itâs essential. Our young talent is being blocked by cheap foreign imports. I would implement a rule saying that at least 6 players in the starting XI of each game must be qualified to play for England. ⢠More Premiership money to be ploughed into grass roots youth football â perhaps a FA levy which the FA could distribute to youth set ups that meet itâs youth policy criteria. Unfortunately isnât there a contradiction here because the Premiership is filthy rich because we have the most attractive football for the television companies to sell worldwide because of the foreign influx. The Premiership is first choice for football on sports bars TVs all over the world. Of course along with the top Spanish teams. ⢠All England teams (all age groups) to play in a similar way Try telling an international coach to play to someone elses tactics. They are among the most arrogant bath stewards around ⢠Reduce the size of the Premier League to 18 ( at the same time restructure League 2 and the Conference to be League 2 North and South) Totally agree with four up from the North and South Divisions. BUT why change what worked before? Split League 1 and 2 into two tables. Arrange play offs for the third and fourth promotion place amongst the two regional divs. There just isnât enough interest in existing non league to justify their inclusion. ⢠Implement a mid-winter break (and ban teams from playing overseas friendlies during that break) Why. Do we want to intrude on the cricket season even more? ⢠Restrict the number of overseas players entering our Academies (max of 2 per club per age group) Make them pay and the more the merrier. ⢠Coaching emphasis on youngsters to concentrate on technical skills Totally agree ⢠Small sided games/pitches to be extended to older age groups - 13-14 years. This keeps the emphasis on technique, not about who can kick it the furthest. Yes. ⢠Youth coaches to be encouraged to play ALL kids not just the best ones (you donât get better by sitting on the bench). Yes ⢠Winning is not the be all and end all at that age â more important to teach kids how to play and enjoy it. Try and tell the kids that! ⢠Work with the Government to enhance school sports Yes
how about limiting clubs "parachute" money to a set percentage of their net turnover, might make them concentrate on their youth systems, a ban on overseas exhibition games in any midseason break would be doomed because x amount of sponsorship money would disappear.
Without government intervention it wont happen. The premier keague takes all the money and spends in on foreign players because the premirr league is now a foreign brand. foreign owners and players. They also now decidechow academies run which affects coaching nationwide. Improving the standard of english kids should be a national responsibilty. The dutch germans Italians portugese spanish dont coach their kids as poorly as we do. That respondibilty cany happen when the EPL not fan run the show now.
I generally take an interest in these type of debates, but having read the fourth bullet point down, I suddenly found myself starved of oxygen...'Reduce the size of the Premier League to 18' Although I totally agree and have voiced the only saving grace of that paragraph with something I have suggested for many a season...'at the same time restructure League 2 and the Conference to be League 2 North and South'. How about this as an idea dump the selected Premier League 18 on a channel crossing to their beloved Europe taking all the plastics with them, quickly followed by a closure of the borders on their departure.
The decline of English Football as we used to know it starting disappearing many years ago and due to the continued negligence of the game's governing bodies we have arrived at today's version of our beloved game. If during the intervening years due diligence was paid, not just to the short term evolvement of football, but to it's longer term implications, then perhaps we would not be in the supposed mess many people see, both in the domestic and international setups. Unfortunately greed and to hell with everyone else attitudes have meant the sport of football thrives on many fronts whilst ignoring it's grass roots and the effect that has on the rest of the Football League. I have never had a problem with the formation of the Premier League and it's somewhat elitist attitude but rather with the knockdown effect it has had on teams like Bristol City, and the many others who have to struggle for survival. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see how foreign ownership has affected the game and the supposed financial competence of owners being under scrutiny by the governers of the league has fallen by the wayside by my assessment. Don't get me wrong here because I am not totally against foreign ownership but I just don't think it's stewardship has passed the acid test. I really do believe that many opportunities to get it right have passed their best before date and hindsight cannot fix the problems because in today's market the powers that be will cry foul of any attempt to change the status quo. It's a shame really that common sense seems to have long exited stage left never to return, but we can but hope that the game has the potential to be put back on a more level playing field to the benefit of all and not just the selected few.
English football hasn't declined it's always been inferior. We all wear the rose tinted glasses about 1966 but aside from that triumph we are ****, have always been **** and will probably always be ****.
Must confess I have been in that bubble for way too long but seeing as I was at Wembley on that magic day in 1966 I feel I have that right. Nonetheless I think you must agree that we used to go further in international competitions in years past but was that because there were fewer teams vying for the spots? The thread was more about why English football has declined and not especially about our international lack of success.
Wiki it, then you will find out where you got in the competitions. I've never seen Wales in a major comp seeing as the last time was way before I was born.
Sir Bobby Robson, probably the best manager we ever had. Anyone that can manage and not give that Pearce a slap must be good. The only reason I can ever tolerate Mourinho is in the knowledge that Bobby was his mentor.
Kids of five, six , seven don't care about winning. One of the most talented kids I have seen recently at underer nine level in Bristol was Spanish. Understand why that kid is already so good, develop players in the same manner and that will fill academies with kids of a superior standard, and eventually they will fill sides as they do abroad. English kids are already behind in their football development at five and six. 13 - 14 is too late. Spanish kids start at TWO. and THREE.
'apart from Italia 90 everyone has lived in a 47 year bubble' The best ever England side was the 1970 team.
I was lucky enough to see the Alf Ramsay style develop in Ipswich in the early 60's, when he took a side from nobodies in the lowest division to top of the tree. He didn't have any particularly special players, he was just a tactical genius. His 1966 England side didn't win the World Cup because they had the best players. They won because Ramsay broke away from the rigid systems everyone employed and the other teams simply couldn't cope with his style of play. Ball and Hurst ran huge distances and pulled opposition defences apart. He was also no respecter of 'big names'; superstars like Jimmy Greaves, who was one of the first names on previous manager's team sheets, but didn't get a sniff with Ramsay because he couldn't play Ramsay's way. If any manager can come up with revolutionary tactics they can often achieve success with an average set of players. Older City fans should remember the success that Alan Dicks achieved using tactics which opposing teams failed to counteract, boring to watch but highly successful.......
Sorry one of your main points is wrong Greaves was Ramsey's first choice at the start of the 1966 World Cup he was left out due to injury and didn't get back into the side for the final when fit again because Ramsey decided that the players that got them to the final should play. Quote from Sir Alf Ramseys book repeated on Wiki - Greaves was the first-choice striker for the England team during the 1966 World Cup but suffered a shin injury during a game against France and had to be replaced. His replacement, Geoff Hurst, scored the winner in the quarter final against Argentina and kept his place all the way to the final, scoring a hat-trick as England won the tournament. Secondly I watched Bristol City under Alan Dicks and I would hardly call them boring at least until we lost Cheesley until then we played similar football to other sides of the era with 2 wingers etc most of what people said was boring about the football City played then was the result of 2 things the Loss of the Cheese followed by the loss of Collier on a Free transfer to Coventry (which directly caused the 1982 financial problems) we never managed to replace either with players as good and tactics had to change as a result. City's mistake during the decline was to sack Dicks just as the team started to come to terms with being relegated, with a small minority of mouthy fans panicing the board into the action, Yes I was there, and I was one of the majority who couldn't believe he was sacked. There were a group of fans who hadn't liked Dicks from the time he was appointed and they seemed to be concentrated in the old Grandstand, now the Williams, just above where the old Tunnel used to come out right in front of the directors box and their constant moans finally affected the judgement of the board. Not too difficult with various directors we have had over the years in common with most football boards they are popularist and you get a loud enough group of fans they can panic them into kneejerk reactions. However it was a long time ago and all of us remember things differently often depending on how old we were where we stood or sat so what we heard on a constant basis.
In his recent book, Greaves says that he was personally disappointed not to be in the final, but that he has always maintained that Sir Alf did the right thing for the team in selecting a fully fit Geoff Hurst ahead of him). So the reasons for Greaves not being imn the final are: 1) Sir Alf liked how Hurst and Peters played together, and it fitted with the pattern of play he wanted for his England team 2) Greaves was not fully fit 3) Hurst had scored for England in the Quarter Final 4) Sir Alf did not wish to change a winning team. Source(s): The Heart of the Game, by Jimmy Greaves I've still got my 1977 unused ticket for the City v Man U game if you want go and watch it Hawksy. That would be the first game in Bristol I missed for fifteen years, I think it may have been after that game that The Doc said something like ' I wouldn't cross the road to watch Bristol City'
For me, the biggest failure of English football is in our exports, not in our imports. We can probably name only a handful of English players who are both good and are playing abroad in a top league. Michael Mancienne, who plays for Schalke, is the only good player playing abroad that I can think of at the moment, and he'll probably switch allegiances this year since he claimed that unless he got an England call-up by the time he hit 25 he'd switch. He could be playing for Bayern Munich for all it matters, he won't get a call-up because he doesn't play in England. The simple fact is this. There are twenty teams in the Premier League, and if we assume that each team of eleven starters will have around two English players, that means we have only have at most 40 players to choose from. That is simply not enough of a pool to build a successful national team. However, if we look at the quality in academies and in the Football League last season, there are a number of players that could make the step up. The likes of Wilfried Zaha, Will Hughes, Thomas Ince, and co show a number of great players who are playing regular football, but who also could play first-team football in a top league. Zaha now plays for Man Utd, but I doubt Ince or Hughes will move because any team that wants either of them won't be able to offer first-team opportunities. Also, their prices are incredibly inflated, so there's no chance they'll get a move elsewhere. If I were Greg Dyke, my speech would focus on bringing English players to the rest of Europe. I'd work with the Premier League to set up a rule, so that English players have a set release clause for teams outside of Britain. For example, Will Hughes can cost £10m for Liverpool, or he could cost £5m for any team outside of the Premier League or SPL. This would make him a much more attractive prospect for teams in Italy, Germany, Spain and co. In addition to this, I would push foreign scouts towards scouting in the Football League and Premier League. The transfer of Dale Jennings revealed that there are NO foreign scouts operating in England at all. England could uncover another Messi, and no one outside of England would find him, and if the typical local scouts dismiss this player then he'll probably be working in McDonalds. It's stupid to push the whole quota thing. Not only is it illegal to discriminate on these grounds, it doesn't instantly make our players better. It would make a lot more sense to get English players opportunities elsewhere, and to try and improve the mentality of young players. I mean, how many other jobs offer you the freedom to effectively live in some of the most beautiful countries in the world to work, while earning a ton of cash. Not only will it get more English players playing in some of the top competitions in the world (including the Champions League), it'll get English players playing vastly different styles of football. Also, the next generation of coaches will have intimate knowledge of football outside of England, which can only improve the level of coaching in this country. In short, don't quota. Let as many as we can in, and tell the English players to get off their benches and into a team elsewhere.
That team had great players like Charlton and Moore. Teams now dont have rigid tactics they have players who are vetsatile and possess great technique England dont. Germany manages athletic ( English trait) high temp (English!) but they have grrat touch ( England ####!!!). Spain have an XI of players with tecnique they also have extra good/great players for every position and more coming through. The Dutch is a conveyor belt of great players from a small country. The Belgians now also are producing numerous top quaity players. Cliftonville is right check what England does at kids levels at primary school. A dutch under seven side you will see two footed kids while an english one wont be. Get it wrong at the start and it will be wrong twenty years later. England is caught in its own time warp.
