: Tue Jul 14, 2009 2:00 pm  

Tony Soprano wrote:

So you can take any set of young local amateur lads and turn them into GB players can you?

What if the club have signed the very best young local talent and trained them the exact same way as we did with McGuire, Burrow, JJB etc but unfortunately they are just not as naturally talented?

Thats completely not what I said.

The club identified players to bring into their scholorship scheme. They developed those precisely how they had planned, in order to get them ready for first team by a certain period.

It was not a fluke that these players were all ready at the same time, no matter what you might believe. Talented players do not dry up from the game. It is how they are developed that changes.

If Leeds or other clubs followed the same way they did before, then they can if they wish, repeat what Leeds did.

: Tue Jul 14, 2009 2:07 pm  

Tony Soprano wrote:

Just some of your comments didn't sound too "welcoming"

My comments on this thread query the recent effectiveness of the Academy structures in place at the club rather than saying anything about a player I know little about at this point.

: Tue Jul 14, 2009 2:14 pm  

Andy Gilder wrote:

The vision of the Leeds Academy is hugely distorted by a once in a lifetime crop emerging around the turn of the decade.

Within the space of three or four years, the club brought through numerous players who have gone on to represent their country (Mathers, Calderwood, Walker, McGuire, Burrow, Bailey, Ward, Diskin, Jones-Buchanan, Sinfield - off the top of my head).

I'd be surprised to see any club replicate that in the near future.

If an Academy system feeds one or two players in who go on to establish themselves in the first team every year, it's performing adequately IMO.

I agree, and all this talk of academy systems being a "production line" is nonsense.

To take a football example, after Manchester United lost the Busby team, they had to wait around 40 years for another crop of quality youngsters (Beckham, Butt, Scholes, Neville, Giggs etc). That's one hell of a long time for a large quantity of youngsters and the current make-up of Rhinos team is comparable to the make-up of the Man Utd team in the mid-late 1990s.

If you want more trivia, Ben Foster is the first ever "Man Utd grown" player to play in goal for England. If you use the "production line" theory, surely a club of that size should have been capable of producing an England goalkeeper?

For every player in every pro sporting first team that has come through the ranks, there are many more who never made it. There is so much loss and wastage in youth sport and it's not because the coaching isn't good enough, it's because the players aren't. It's the reason why Yorkshire have never found another Fred Trueman or why Leeds United can't find another John Charles.

: Tue Jul 14, 2009 2:17 pm  

Andy Gilder wrote:

I look forward to seeing 8 Cas Academy products representing England over the next four or five years. I won't hold my breath waiting for it to happen though.

For all those players to emerge in such a short space of time at the same club was exceptional IMO - to imply otherwise would raise the query as to why no other club has done it over the recent past.

Haven't the service areas and/or service area rules changed since they were in the Leeds academy, which has restricted the area that Leeds and other clubs can fill their academies from.

: Tue Jul 14, 2009 2:24 pm  

bramleyrhino wrote:

or why Leeds United can't find another John Charles.

You'll correct me I'm sure as I can write on the back of a postage stamp what I know about football but that must have been one hellova service area Leeds United used to have.

: Tue Jul 14, 2009 2:29 pm  

tvoc wrote:

You'll correct me I'm sure as I can write on the back of a postage stamp what I know about football but that must have been one hellova service area Leeds United used to have.

: Tue Jul 14, 2009 2:33 pm  

Gotcha wrote:

Thats completely not what I said.

The club identified players to bring into their scholorship scheme. They developed those precisely how they had planned, in order to get them ready for first team by a certain period.

It was not a fluke that these players were all ready at the same time, no matter what you might believe. Talented players do not dry up from the game. It is how they are developed that changes.

If Leeds or other clubs followed the same way they did before, then they can if they wish, repeat what Leeds did.

You will have to explain it to me in laymans terms because I could read that 100 times and still have no idea how all those players came through at once, if it can be done then every club in the world of sport would pour every resource they had into doing it.

: Tue Jul 14, 2009 2:39 pm  

bramleyrhino wrote:

If you want more trivia, Ben Foster is the first ever "Man Utd grown" player to play in goal for England. If you use the "production line" theory, surely a club of that size should have been capable of producing an England goalkeeper?

Ahem - United signed Ben Foster from Stoke for £100,000 in 2005, by which time Foster had already played first team football out on loan.

But I get the point you're making.

: Tue Jul 14, 2009 2:41 pm  

Andy Gilder wrote:

Ahem - United signed Ben Foster from Stoke for £100,000 in 2005, by which time Foster had already played first team football out on loan.

But I get the point you're making.

Southend paid £100k for a keeper?

: Tue Jul 14, 2009 3:07 pm  

tvoc wrote:

You'll correct me I'm sure as I can write on the back of a postage stamp what I know about football but that must have been one hellova service area Leeds United used to have.

Ahem - United signed Ben Foster from Stoke for £100,000 in 2005, by which time Foster had already played first team football out on loan. Wink

Meh, a good point ruined with unchecked facts.

I should apply for a job at the YEP.