When was the last youth team player we brought through and sold on for a healthy profit? teams like Crystal Palace bring em up right and get them in the first team early and sell em on for a good profit. Look at the young kid who played against us last season at the KC, his skills were fantastic. Now look at how we have treat Cooper. First game thrown in against Liverpool then notseen again for how long. What did that do for his confidence. Until we actually have a strong youth policy, we are going to struggle. Unless young kids in Hull can point to a successful local boy in the first team who they can then aspire to be we will continue to produce nothing. And no we didnt produce Nicky Barmby.
Adam Bolder? Agree 100% but you can't force that to happen. We all wanted Featherstone, Atkinson, Cullen, Cooper, etc to be a success but they have their level. You can't just throw them in or you'll ruin them. Cooper isn't a Championship defender at this moment. He is only 19 though so the club have done what is right for him.
There are hundreds of kids all over the country who are highly rated, which is why clubs keep them contracted, because they have potential. Not many of them play first team football though. Cooper is only 19. He's not in the same bracket as Chester or Hobbs at the moment. With a good season behind him, plenty of football and more experience, he might be. If NP sold him to Huddersfield, then what you said would ring true but the fact he's only let him go on loan is a sign.
Hull have one of the largest boy's Sunday leagues in the county - Christ Westella and Willerby have just won the U16s nationals! Its a shame that none of them make it to this level, or if they do its with Leeds or Man U!!
How much did we get for Adam Bolder? That was 12 years ago. I agree you cant force it to happen, but as a production line its Austin Allegro isnt it. I do have a bee in my bonnet about the youth set up here having watched them train a few times. It was gash. Beckham only went out on loan for a short time. I was always taught play at a high level as possible as young as possible n adjust to it. Going down the leagues for a season and you may get into bad habits and take it too casual. Surely as an ex centre half NP must want to mould Cooper himself??
About £75,000 if I remember right. Not a great deal but the last profit I think of! David Beckham was exceptional. There are plenty of kids at higher clubs who go out on loan a lot. I generally think it's a sign that they won't ever be good enough to play for their parent club. I think playing league football is the best thing for him. I'm sure NP feels the same. I'm sure he would like to mould him but training and playing for the reserves won't challenge him enough. Chucking him in the first team in front of 20,000 fans every week if he's not good enough won't help either. There's no room for sentiment. I think they've done what's best for Coops. You're right about the youth setup, the numbers speak for themselves. There are a lot of people working hard on it though and we have some cracking 15/16 year olds at the moment as well as kids like Emerton, Holohan and Bradley who look decent so we'll have to wait and see.
I think all managers are too short term in their thinking. Of course its easier to sign or loan Man U players than trust your youth set up. Ideally until a Nick Barmby or Deano who are from Hull take charge and invest in the youth of this City we will continue to produce next to nowt. Or i win the Euro millions!!
You'd think if this leaves us with only 3 recognised CB's Nigel wouldnt be daft enough to leave it that way for the start of the season, Definatly think theres something in the offing. Could be a player not needed anymore from Sunderland or could be Ayala, Could be a complete unknown. Regarding Cooper dont see whats wrong with Farming him to Hudds, good strong league 1 team and if he performs well, gains experiance, Proves to Nige that hes more than capabale at league 1 level then were laughing we have a good prospect for next season to blood.
Wasn't Bolder £75k upfront with clauses that coulld have taken it up to over £400k? I don't know what the additional clauses were but I think he played for them in the PL and was their club captain in the Championship so you would have thought he must have hit most of the targets? Another point with regards Cooper's progression though. With Hobbs, Chester, and possibly Ayala we're going to have 2 quite inexperianced defenders and one who's moderately experianced. Maybe it's felt Cooper will learn more playing alongside an experianced defender like Peter Clarke than he will alongside our other centre backs. Obviously I'd prefer our own players to come through and play for us, but look at the setup we've had and where we were. The majority of our recruits that have come through in the last few years were recruited when we were (in current terms) a L1 or L2 club or were cast offs from other clubs (Cairney and Anderson). At the time we had clubs like Scunthorpe and Grimsby above us in the league and of course Leeds in the PL. They were all automatically a better choice than us for players with ambition because they had a better league status, were better run in terms of maintaining their existance, and their youth setup can't have had worse facilities than us if Ideal Standard represented a significant improvement for us. If it were my kid I'd probably have chosen one of the other clubs as well (given the choice). This next set to come through (the ones about 16/17 now) will be the first players that we were able to sign from a position ahead of our rivals and where we're not relying on clubs casting players off at a later date or them having snuck through under the radar. If we get promoted again and manage to establish ourselves like Wigan have though we're looking at 3 years time before we get to our first PL recruits coming through, so we might have to cut loose a lot of Championship prospects for their own benefit.
Huddersfield are a very well-run club and an all round good team, all they lacked last season was a goalscorer. Big op for Liam.
Paul Anderson was probably the best to come through our academy in the recent past, we didn't get money for him as he was a player swap with Welsh, but Liverpool rated Welsh at about £750k at the time. He'd already played for the Liverpool first team and looked a class act until he broke his leg, unfortunately, he never quite regained his form after that injury.
When I say he came through our academy, I mean he came through our academy for a year or so. I'm not actually sure where he came from, his wiki page says his youth career was at West Brom, but then in the main write up it says he was released from Leicester City(as he's from Melton Mowbray, the latter seems more likely). Edit: Just checked the Forest site and it was West Brom - Anderson started his career with West Brom but joined his boyhood idols Hull when he was 16 after being released.
On the subject of our former academy prospects, an honourable mention should go to Scott Wiseman. Dropped down to the lower leagues and now finds himself back in the championship with Barnsley. Fair play to the lad.
I liked Wiseman, he was decent with the ball at his feet, unfortunately he was a bit light weight for a defender. I hope he does alright at Barnsley, but he'll need to have toughened up a bit.
