FA Commission

[CAFC TED]

Problem is
We have a different style of football to any other country down to 1 thing
Quality of local league pitches

Very few teams have nice pitches for sunday league and youth football, we've all seen it. And it means we develop a different style of football

Young boy Timmy Thompson is gifted and a wonderful dribbler, first touch like his boot it made of glue and a truly great prospect.
On these sh!tty pitches though he tries to dribble and can't
Also, oversized for his age Big Billy Jones smashes into Timmy and has him in his pocket all game.
Timmy gets bored of this so he quits football
Billy though is signed by Man United and put in the academy until 18 and then joins Mansfield Town afterwards and has a career in Leagues One and Two
Timmy mean while, possibly the most gifted player in 20 years had quit football and now works as an estate agent.

England miss a class player and the lower leagues get a decent lower league player

That is the problem with the English game, fix the pitches so good players can play and then bam, we will have good players for England again

 

[Ponders Revisited]

Problem is
We have a different style of football to any other country down to 1 thing
Quality of local league pitches

Very few teams have nice pitches for sunday league and youth football, we've all seen it. And it means we develop a different style of football

Young boy Timmy Thompson is gifted and a wonderful dribbler, first touch like his boot it made of glue and a truly great prospect.
On these sh!tty pitches though he tries to dribble and can't
Also, oversized for his age Big Billy Jones smashes into Timmy and has him in his pocket all game.
Timmy gets bored of this so he quits football
Billy though is signed by Man United and put in the academy until 18 and then joins Mansfield Town afterwards and has a career in Leagues One and Two
Timmy mean while, possibly the most gifted player in 20 years had quit football and now works as an estate agent.

England miss a class player and the lower leagues get a decent lower league player

That is the problem with the English game, fix the pitches so good players can play and then bam, we will have good players for England again

I agree to a point, Ted, but what about the glut of classy players who are/were brought up playing in the dusty side-streets of Rio and on the rubbish-strewn waste-grounds of Buenos Aires?

 

[IA]

It's always a feast or a famine with England international fans. I don't think the current team is that good, and would be lucky to get out of the group, but I don't see that as a failure of the players/management - they're not good enough. If it's a failure, it's far more likely a failure of the structures & coaching over the past 10-15 years. The FA are trying to address this, but in such a cack-handed way that it doesn't seem likely to work.

I have never heard before that B teams were responsible for Germany's improvements in the past 4 years. I would think that numbers of coaches would have a bigger part to play.

I have heard before that B teams in Spain were responsible, but that was just one B team (Barcelona), which developed players for the successful Barcelona team ('greatest team ever' etc) and formed the backbone of Spain's successful team.

I'm not sure how English fans will take to these B teams. There's a stronger fan culture than in Spain, and bigger price differences than in Germany. Would the people who have been priced out of going to, say, Stamford Bridge, go to Chelsea B home games? Possibly. Would they go to Chelsea B away games? No.

Presents a nightmare situation for League 2 and conference clubs, for whom home gates are a major source of revenue. Take Accrington Stanley, who are always mentioned as one of the clubs with the lowest budget in League 2. Right now, they have 23 home games against real clubs, who bring away fans and locals go to the matches. If they're replaced by 13 games against real clubs and 10 against B teams, would locals go to see Accrington v Aston Villa B, Stoke B, Newcastle B? Maybe the first time, but the novelty would wear out soon enough. Would they buy season tickets, or would they prefer to pick and choose matches, leaving a hole in the budget (where they expect to receive most of the income before the start of the season)? I doubt the commercial side would be helped either. It might not kill the clubs, but it would make them weaker.

Some people would be happy to see Bradley Pritchard have to leave, but should he be banned from playing for Crawley or Colchester? What does that achieve?

Leaving aside the societal stuff, I think Scottish football would be better if the Old Firm clubs no longer existed, or even played somewhere else. It seems like the big clubs of England are going the same way.

 

[Ponders Revisited]

Some people would be happy to see Bradley Pritchard have to leave, but should he be banned from playing for Crawley or Colchester? What does that achieve?

That is an odd view for some people to have. I don't get it in the slightest.

Whether it be the cloistered world of football or society at large, there seems to be an unhealthy interest in non-EU immigration. Surely the moot point is whether the individual adds to this country or drains resources, regardless of origin.

I'd rather have Bradley Pritchard paying a handsome amount of income-tax to this country's coffers than an imported Big Issue seller.

 

[CAFC TED]

I agree to a point, Ted, but what about the glut of classy players who are/were brought up playing in the dusty side-streets of Rio and on the rubbish-strewn waste-grounds of Buenos Aires?

Touche Ponders.... clearly something in the water in South America Because I can't explain that one at all, apart from maybe, its just how football is played on the streets compared to a sunday league setting.

 

[IA]

That is an odd view for some people to have. I don't get it in the slightest.

Whether it be the cloistered world of football or society at large, there seems to be an unhealthy interest in non-EU immigration. Surely the moot point is whether the individual adds to this country or drains resources, regardless of origin.

I agree completely. I don't think any Charlton fan wants to see Bradley banned from professional football, but that is included in the proposals from the FA. He may have a UK passport, I'm not sure, but I checked Wiki and he was born in Harare

How exactly would preventing Dagenham from signing a bloke from Zimbabwe, Japan, Jamaica, whatever benefit the development of the English game? Would teams relegated from the Premier League have to sell all their non-EU players on relegation (eg Reading/Pogrebniak)? Why are the Premier League exempt from this regulation? Surely all of the proposals are designed to help PL clubs develop English players, and it's against the law to ban EU citizens, so how does it benefit English player development that Stoke can sign a Russian player but not Fulham?

 

[Scratchingvalleycat]

Can but agree that the banning of non eu players is not beneficial and certainly not when there is an exceptionfor the premier league. Having a limit on the number may be acceptable as discussed earlier, but in reality we should be using positive regulation by insisting on minimum numbers having origimated from a clubs own academy (having spent at least two years there before playing in the first team) and insisting that a significant percentage of those in the academy are qualified to play for the home nations.

 

[PuttersCAFC]

Problem is
We have a different style of football to any other country down to 1 thing
Quality of local league pitches

Very few teams have nice pitches for sunday league and youth football, we've all seen it. And it means we develop a different style of football

Young boy Timmy Thompson is gifted and a wonderful dribbler, first touch like his boot it made of glue and a truly great prospect.
On these sh!tty pitches though he tries to dribble and can't
Also, oversized for his age Big Billy Jones smashes into Timmy and has him in his pocket all game.
Timmy gets bored of this so he quits football
Billy though is signed by Man United and put in the academy until 18 and then joins Mansfield Town afterwards and has a career in Leagues One and Two
Timmy mean while, possibly the most gifted player in 20 years had quit football and now works as an estate agent.

England miss a class player and the lower leagues get a decent lower league player

That is the problem with the English game, fix the pitches so good players can play and then bam, we will have good players for England again

Hi all,

Long time reader of the forum as I can't get to many games, but I haven't really posted much, but this is something that really interests me as I work as a coach for a charity working with young athletes.

Ted, I think your story about Timmy Thompson is pretty much bang on, the only thing I'd add is you are missing Angry Coach who never made it as a footballer who is trying to make up for his own failing by trying to get success through Youth Football coaching.

The amount of time you see angry coaches and parents shouting at kids for the smallest errors is astonishing, and its so detrimental for the development of the kids. The other side of this, is that it is all about winning for the coach, they honestly don't give a toss about the kids. This is where you get coaches championing Big Billy Jones who can run quicker than everyone else (so will get onto anything punted long), will kick lumps out of Timmy Thompson all game (probably because he is being shouted at by Angry Coach to do so), and will generally be the focus of how the team plays.

In my job we look at developing the athlete while they are young. Everything they do is about building up skill level and learning how to compete. The only real focus on performance comes when they hit 16-18, once we have had a chance to build the athlete while they are at the prime age to learn. The athletes I work with tend not to be competitive while they are younger, and get beaten by the kids that are flogged by their coaches. I am lucky in that the people that pay my wages are not interested in results with kids aged 12-15, but if we are not getting results once they are older, that is when questions get asked.

If more people involved in coaching football at younger ages were more interested in developing the kids, rather than winning for themselves, then the National Team would benefit greatly! Well, that's my opinion anyway!

 

[ForestHillBilly]

... the Premiership has become an all consuming economic monster, that must be fed.

Greg Dyke wants to take it a stage further now. Presumably he gets paid a vast amount of money to produce this garbage. As a percentage the Premier League has actually reduced the amount of its vast wealth which goes towards the sort of youth football Ted was talking about, which is putting some clubs on the edge of extinction. Councils are under severe financial pressure, and so are unable to subsidise them. It's not just the Premier League which is the monster, either, it's the elite few at the top, the "Champion's League Clubs", which are becoming the be-all and end-all. Personally I don't give a toss who wins the so-called Champions League, it has skewed football, and created a glass ceiling for any other club. They can build huge squads, hoovering up promising kids, probably ruining the career of many of them. They can also attract the best managers, and if they make a mistake they won't miss a few million it takes to terminate their contract after a few months (Scolari).
So, scrap the Champions' League, and the ghastly Europa League, bring back the European Cup and the much-loved Cup-Winners' Cup, and the Uefa Cup. Can you imagine teams like Celtic, Aston Villa, Nottingham Forest, Steua Bucharest achieving glory in europe under the present set-up? Not to mention Aberdeen, West Ham, Wolves and others winning the Cup-winners' Cup. It's not allowed now, old boy!