It's always something of a gamble when you first play youngsters in the first team are you going to get an Ox, Walcot, Bale or something more akin to a Blizard, Stern John, Patrick Angryman. Or as more usual something in between until you play them you do not know for sure what they will turn out to be no matter how good they look at Junior level, think back to the halcion days of the 70's we had some of the best English youth team players in the country but only one or two even got close to the first team they were found out in the hurly burly of the reserves playing against men. Also it was our bad luck and the Gas's good luck which Mabbutt we each got.
Isn't that a bit unfair Hawk; we got from the youth set up of the late 60's and early 70's the following: Cashley, Merrick, Collier, Ritchie, Tainton, Whitehead, Rodgers, Gow. All of whom made telling contributions to our 1976 promotion and four year stay in Div One. Eight who progressed up to first team level in such a short period is, I would assert, unknown before or since in Bristol City history. And even the last time we had youth players come through in late 90's/early 2000's with Matt Hill, Coles, Doherty, Lita, Phillips (?). Tuesday night is the first time I've seen Wes Burns live and he looked well built, strong and probably ready for at least 15 to 20 games next season. I also believe that Joe Bryan is likely to be a regular in the side next season in League One. I'm not sure yet about Bobbie Reid but I remember that many of us had real doubts about Gerry Gow in his first two seasons, while Toby Ajala played three months at Wimbledon with some success. Where we appear to lack youth prospects is in central defence, but maybe they have just not been caught on the media radar yet. Hawk; I'm not trying to say all is rosy in our youth team garden but we may get a better show next year then many of us think will happen. And don't forget the young lad Morrell who could if he is as good as reports lead us to believe, could also be knocking on the door within a very short period. I feel we should be optimistic about who and what may be coming out of the Academy within the next season or two.
I remember that at one stage the England youth team had 4 players in the team on Bristol Citys books and none of them played more than a handfull of games for City and all 4 disappeared without trace. In the 60's and 70's our scouting set up was effecient and we picked up a lot of young players from Scotland as well as from the local area. The players you mentioned were just before the time I was refering too, Tom and Steve Ritchie I think came to us from a youth team in Scotland as did Gerry Gow and Whitehead from either a youth team in Brum or Wolves again thats from memory and it was a few years back Rodgers, Cashley, Merrick and Collier were locals again thats memory. I'm struggling to remember the names of the players who got found out Sean/Shaun? Penny (Think he was sponsored by the club to was it Millfield school? well one of the private schools anyway)(Think he got as far as one or two appearences)rings a bell but the others have now gone from the old grey matter but the others didn't last more than a few months in the stiffs before vanishing.
PS I played against Gerry Gow just after he arrived at City and I never had any doubts he would make it I had fewer bruises marking a certain Tommy Smith in a proir trial game, although I did break my leg tackling him, Tommy Smith that was right at the end of the game.
Your memory is pretty good Hawk, and I'd forgotten Shaun Penny as he never made it with City. But he's not alone as there will always be those who do not make it through to Football League standard for one reason or another. Mainly it is due to a lack of grim determination rather than ability, but that is true of all walks of life. I could provide a long list of City youth players who never made it to be first team regulars for a good number of years. But that will always be true and the failure rate varies little from on era to another. But, while I see very little of the Academy players now due to where I live, I, like you, do have a lifetime's experience of seeing young players develop at City. And in my opinion, I see in Joe Bryan, Wes Burns and possibly one or two others, that they will "make it". I know one or three youngsters coming in next season is not enough to gain us promotion next season, at least it will provide us with the initial building blocks for City's recovery from the last five wasted years that we've had because of high salaries paid to non performing or over the hill wasters like David James, Trundle et all!
One thing we should mention is that the new academy system will allow us to expand our scouting, and to bring in players that are outside of our catchment area. We've actually done pretty well in this regard before. We landed Evander Sno, who was a cracking player for us on loan, and we've been linked to players like Kenny Cooper and Brek Shea from America. If we get Category 2 status, and if Lansdown is serious about building the academy up (and doesn't just want to cut costs by getting local players on the cheap) then I can see us trying to entice talent from abroad into our system. Since Bristol Rovers linked with UWE for their stadium I'd love to see Bristol City link up with the University of Bristol. It's a better university and their outreach programmes stretch across the globe, meaning that some kind of affiliation might open our scouts towards being able to land talent from youth teams in countries like China, America and mainland Europe. It'd also be good to have some kind of education link so we can improve the quality of coaching, and potentially the facilities and technology at our disposal.
"It is unclear when the club will hear the result of its Category Two audit." Statement on the opening thread
