I read an interesting article in the Evening Gazette last night. The Article was about Boro's new intake of youngsters for next season, and how its possibly the best crop of youngsters theyve ever had. They was a part of the article that said -Goalkeeper, James Montgomery, who is related to the hero of Sunderlands 1973 FA cup final victory over Leeds United joins the Academy as a 2nd year apprentice from Bede college in Sunderland. Another player with a link to Boro's North-east rivals is Sunderland born Andre Bennett from Houghton-le-spring. Im not sure if these players have already had a crack at our Academy or not, but I find it hard to believe how any Sunderland youngster would choose Boro over us, especially a relative of a Sunderland legend! I hope this is'nt another Adam Johnson scenario, who also somehow slipped through our net to our North east rivals!
I thought this was some post about a North-East *****phile ring... It turns out the subject was worse than I thought!
Isn't there some kind of exclusion zone for this type of thing (with a lot of our radius being in the North Sea). I am surprised that Boro are taking kids from Sunderland and Houghton etc as they are (obviously) in our back yard. If they are kids that have been through the Academy and then released then the rules may be different I suppose. They do take kids at a very early age. Boro were interested in taking my son (9 now) before we emigrated. He was only 7 at the time (goalkeeper), but we lived in N. Yorks at the time which is in their back yard.
Im not sure what the rules are regarding bounderies, but i remeber Keano once mentioning that nearly half of our catchment area is the Sea, going by a 50 mile radius, so we have a disadvantage. Woodgate came through Leeds academy but was a Boro lad!
Boro have always had one of the best youth policies in he country and this goes back a long way. We can't take every youngster that comes along so naturally some will go south and some north. Just the way it is.
