But what constitutes the scrap heap? Even an academy prospect that fails to make the grade has a strong chance of still playing league 2 and up easily. And in league 2 you could expect a good club to pay £500 quid a week which is 26k a year. Who's to say the kid would have got any more than that by going through school? Add to that the ability to become coach, manager, ambassador etc etc after. It's not a bad life really. People seem to think that anything other than top flight footie means you're a failure - imagine if in business anything less than CEO/director counted as a failure! (I say this because prem top earners percentage wise equlas the same as the fat cat top earners in business and so there are many similarities).
hmmm good question. I would say playing semi pro? example ray putteril played with spearing in our last youth cup winning team and was probably the bes tplayer outside of linfield (accrington stanley) and spearing. he went to Halewood Town and is now not playing to my knowledge. to me thats scrap heap or i guess having to take up a very low end job comapred to say soemthing you'd get if you went and got good gcses or more than that. I'd say making it to league 2 or league 1 is a success but theres 90 odd clubs with say 5 slots per year each? what is that? 5-10% of kids per year? i think if you're the kid who doesn't make it at 14, 16, 18 and are released you can have sadly not got the education you might have and while i've not said at all anything about our club doing that I do think there's got to be a big group of kids out there who have not made it and don't have anything to fall back on either.
For what its worth, I expect the example of Ray Putteril is not the best:- "After seven operations throughout his career including a fractured spine, a hip reconstruction, cartilage in his knee, a hernia operation and a fractured spine when playing for England Schoolboys, the under 15s, against Ireland,[9] in July 2010 he signed for League two club Accrington Stanley on a six month contract. Though no official announcement was made, his fitness levels were a concern and as a result he was not offered a contract by Accrington Stanley for the 2011-2012 season." Still, the lad is only 22, so he has time to turn things around, fitness permitting. I don't know what kind of educational qualification he has, but at 22 he has time on his side.
some of those were before his youth cup triumph... warnock had 3 broken legs and worked hard to get back.... o some guys make it and some don't. Linfield i thought was a brillinat header of the ball. he's at accrington. mellor at preston. thats making it. i wonder where joe kennedy or say maxwell or say or ryan flynn orsay the young lad threlfall are now? i could look it up i suppose..... the point is for every 1 guy like kelly there ma be another 7-8 who "make it" and another 50-100 kids who fall by the way side total (say 10-18 years) not all obviously go do nothing but you have to wonder.
