BT 6.30pm today = Programme on Academies

[jamesdad]

Might be worth watching to see if it gives us any information on whether we should keep our own academy

[out0lunch]

I don't have but would be interested in your thoughts but would guess it is just about the Premier league

[jamesdad]

have just watched the programme today and it is all around premier clubs but the stat that shocked me that out of the thousands of young players going through any academies only a figure of 0.01 players will get to the top flight in this country. Lots of good young players are burnt out by the age of 15/16 from the pressure of being told they are going to make it. I think it was Brentford that has there young players from the age of 15 upwards only . There appears to be a lot of coaches / players who are concerned about the promises being made and also the money on offer to these young parents and their families. There was a piece on players being bought and sold whilst at academies but never getting into professional football. It is all down to the premiership and the money they throw at academies. If the FA took control, and did what other countries do we might stand a chance. This programme is well worth a watch if you can download it etc.

[MikeSB]

have just watched the programme today and it is all around premier clubs but the stat that shocked me that out of the thousands of young players going through any academies only a figure of 0.01 players will get to the top flight in this country. Lots of good young players are burnt out by the age of 15/16 from the pressure of being told they are going to make it. I think it was Brentford that has there young players from the age of 15 upwards only . There appears to be a lot of coaches / players who are concerned about the promises being made and also the money on offer to these young parents and their families. There was a piece on players being bought and sold whilst at academies but never getting into professional football. It is all down to the premiership and the money they throw at academies. If the FA took control, and did what other countries do we might stand a chance. This programme is well worth a watch if you can download it etc.

Thanks for that JD as it puts in it perspective how many potential young players are out there and that is just academies never mind non league and also that Brentford have just 15 year old and upwards which makes more sense anyway as why spend millions on 5-14 year olds when you can't know how they develop physically and mentality never mind footballing skills. I think Dario was too involved to make a rational decision re the costs of Cat2 when Cat3 would have been fine as that doesn't mandate coaching the under 15's so Brentford must be Cat3 or lower? I suspect Dario would have gone for Cat1 if he could have.

So thousands of academy players around that we could look at in the middle ****s and bring some to our Cat3 academy seems a more cost effective approach. IF the more coaches they have and the higher level of academy makes the difference as some think even here at Crewe, then shouldn't lots of these ex academy players be better than the ones we produce IF coaching makes the difference that is? I've never though so and think its natural ability that is more important that will always shine through and coaching by numbers and manuals is less important.

What is surprising is our Board has not kept up with all this and keep the same model that is obviously not working while costing millions in the process. I wonder how long the PL will keep spending circa 5 million a year for their academies when so few are coming through? The other side of the coin for them though is that if players are being sold at 75 million or more, then one or two gems coming through may just be worth carrying on with them....and that very prospect as why we do here. I'm not convinced its just to produce L2 standard players though. But I am reading the PL TV money may be reducing and so who knows?

I will just add what you said there that the FA could well afford to pay ALL of the academy costs in the lower leagues IF they were interested in the future of the national team but if more and more foreign born players are in the PL, even they may reconsider the high financial contributions they make now to academies?

[Timmy58]

I can't usually be bothered to get involved in chat about the relative merits of coaching in football, or in sport in general. But on this occasion I feel bound to take issue with the bizarre notion that coaching doesn't benefit players in sports. This is, at best, a misguided view from someone who resides in the 1950s/60s and, at worst, dangerously wrong. If you have kids or grandchildren and are telling them if they haven't got natural ability they aren't going to achieve anything in sport then, sir, you are doing them a gross disservice!. Even if a child does have natural ability, that can be enhance by being coached in for example harnessing that natural ability into a team environment. However, a youngster not "naturally gifted" should still be encouraged to make the best of their opportunities and in football terms, if that means a 5 or 6 year old joining an Academy such as Crewe's then by all means go for it. I am assuming that parents who take their kids to these sessions are actually paying for the time they are there.
On the subject of our Academy I have said, probably as often as Mike has said we should downgrade or get rid of, that the Academy is set up to do more than generate sales. It is to provide players for our first team. The selling is a bonus which I think we have done pretty well out of over the last 30 years!

[MikeSB]

I can't usually be bothered to get involved in chat about the relative merits of coaching in football, or in sport in general. But on this occasion I feel bound to take issue with the bizarre notion that coaching doesn't benefit players in sports. This is, at best, a misguided view from someone who resides in the 1950s/60s and, at worst, dangerously wrong. If you have kids or grandchildren and are telling them if they haven't got natural ability they aren't going to achieve anything in sport then, sir, you are doing them a gross disservice!. Even if a child does have natural ability, that can be enhance by being coached in for example harnessing that natural ability into a team environment. However, a youngster not "naturally gifted" should still be encouraged to make the best of their opportunities and in football terms, if that means a 5 or 6 year old joining an Academy such as Crewe's then by all means go for it. I am assuming that parents who take their kids to these sessions are actually paying for the time they are there.
On the subject of our Academy I have said, probably as often as Mike has said we should downgrade or get rid of, that the Academy is set up to do more than generate sales. It is to provide players for our first team. The selling is a bonus which I think we have done pretty well out of over the last 30 years!

Everyone should have an opinion on the merits of coaching and its benefits. It may well be a 'misguided' old fashioned idea but natural ability doesn't really change that much if at all and we did win the world cup with no official academies and we haven't done that well with them and so the question is why? Jimmy Greaves, one of the best footballers this country ever had said that coaching can destroy natural ability and I'm not going to disagree.

We complain that DA shouting from the touchline or at half time affects the players confidence so they don't know what to do next etc. Greaves was never told how to play and neither was Best or Charlton of Frank Lord in that era and so I don't think the principle has changed. In fact the evidence given in that programme suggest it hasn't either and the ones that make it will do irrespective of coaching and what's more as made clear too that parents expect their kids to be the world's best and will do anything to prove that and why they suffer when they don't and can't. In my era if you were good enough at 15 you were given a trial at a football club and another subject about whether they have schoolboy football nowadays and expect the clubs to do that costing them nothing and the clubs millions...

I think what improves players is not coaching it's the opportunity to get fit and play competitively that improves them. We don't need coaches or fantastic facilities and if you see some other kid or youth doing something special you want to try and do the same thing and that is where you improve. I had golf lessons that made no difference but had a single figure handicap. Some kids were taught by the best coaches in the world and never made it. In fact its well known that many players stop winning when they think they need more expert teaching and so on...Most amateur footballers will have differing abilities and we can see that any Sat or Sun and the ones that really stand out can be brought to a place like our downgraded academy and get more fit and play against better players etc etc..eg How many kids became a Rodney Jack when he was a coach for a while here? One, or none? Does that make the point?

I don't see any more skillful footballers than in my day in fact, imo many are poorer because in that day you had to be pretty good to get a club and we spend millions on a hope and a prayer Timmy..

We will have to disagree about the remit of our academy because I don't think we would spend millions just to get kids up to L2 standard. We have got millions for players but that was because the clubs were daft enough to pay it...I think that programme suggests that is coming to an end and there are so many good players around especially from overseas, they no longer need academies. We don't really but we can have what Dario had before which was a pitch and one or two helpers...and if we can reduce RH to that sort of level, that is fine by me and will save the club millions and anyway it will come to an end when the money dries up as it must surely do soon..

All in my opinion anyway....

Cheers..

[Roebuck]

Everyone should have an opinion on the merits of coaching and its benefits. It may well be a 'misguided' old fashioned idea but natural ability doesn't really change that much if at all and we did win the world cup with no official academies and we haven't done that well with them and so the question is why? Jimmy Greaves, one of the best footballers this country ever had said that coaching can destroy natural ability and I'm not going to disagree.

We complain that DA shouting from the touchline or at half time affects the players confidence so they don't know what to do next etc. Greaves was never told how to play and neither was Best or Charlton of Frank Lord in that era and so I don't think the principle has changed. In fact the evidence given in that programme suggest it hasn't either and the ones that make it will do irrespective of coaching and what's more as made clear too that parents expect their kids to be the world's best and will do anything to prove that and why they suffer when they don't and can't. In my era if you were good enough at 15 you were given a trial at a football club and another subject about whether they have schoolboy football nowadays and expect the clubs to do that costing them nothing and the clubs millions...

I think what improves players is not coaching it's the opportunity to get fit and play competitively that improves them. We don't need coaches or fantastic facilities and if you see some other kid or youth doing something special you want to try and do the same thing and that is where you improve. I had golf lessons that made no difference but had a single figure handicap. Some kids were taught by the best coaches in the world and never made it. In fact its well known that many players stop winning when they think they need more expert teaching and so on...Most amateur footballers will have differing abilities and we can see that any Sat or Sun and the ones that really stand out can be brought to a place like our downgraded academy and get more fit and play against better players etc etc..eg How many kids became a Rodney Jack when he was a coach for a while here? One, or none? Does that make the point?

I don't see any more skillful footballers than in my day in fact, imo many are poorer because in that day you had to be pretty good to get a club and we spend millions on a hope and a prayer Timmy..

We will have to disagree about the remit of our academy because I don't think we would spend millions just to get kids up to L2 standard. We have got millions for players but that was because the clubs were daft enough to pay it...I think that programme suggests that is coming to an end and there are so many good players around especially from overseas, they no longer need academies. We don't really but we can have what Dario had before which was a pitch and one or two helpers...and if we can reduce RH to that sort of level, that is fine by me and will save the club millions and anyway it will come to an end when the money dries up as it must surely do soon..

All in my opinion anyway....

Cheers..

So Pep's coaching is irrelevant and Man City would be playing this level of football if Tony Pulis was in charge. OK.

And Germany win more than anybody else because they have naturally better players than other countries. Something happens to genes as soon as you cross the Polish or Czech borders which stops them winning World Cups. Right.

Something changed in the genetics of the average Spaniard in the 2000's which meant they started winning things. They discovered the source of natural ability maybe and farmed it in crops and fed it to their young players. That was the real secret of La Masia, not the coaching!

And the game now is less skillful than in the days of Jimmy Greaves. Sure.

I agree there are pros and cons to forking out a load of money on an Academy at our level and Cat2 v Cat3 etc, but come on, to question the value of coaching, the mind boggles.

[Timmy58]

Of course coaching makes a difference. I am assuming that if Jimmy Greaves said it didn't it must have been during his drinking days. Yes natural ability makes some players better than others. But coaching is to get the best out of players. And that has never changed

[MikeSB]

So Pep's coaching is irrelevant and Man City would be playing this level of football if Tony Pulis was in charge. OK.

And Germany win more than anybody else because they have naturally better players than other countries. Something happens to genes as soon as you cross the Polish or Czech borders which stops them winning World Cups. Right.

Something changed in the genetics of the average Spaniard in the 2000's which meant they started winning things. They discovered the source of natural ability maybe and farmed it in crops and fed it to their young players. That was the real secret of La Masia, not the coaching!

And the game now is less skillful than in the days of Jimmy Greaves. Sure.

I agree there are pros and cons to forking out a load of money on an Academy at our level and Cat2 v Cat3 etc, but come on, to question the value of coaching, the mind boggles.

ManC are top of the PL for one reason and one only and ManU second for the same reason and Stoke in the bottom 3 etc etc

They have BETTER players and nothing to do with coaching and more about tactics and picking the right team. Stoke cannot afford those players and again IF it was coaching then ALL the players in ALL the leagues would be the same standard and so what separates them?

I saw Greaves play and you can see many of his goals now on youtube. Yes he was a drunkard in later life and mentioning that in this context is beneath contempt imo.

All the international teams have inbuilt strengths and weaknesses and Germany have always had strength and determination. Spain and Italy have innate technical abilities like the Brazilians have. That changes not because of coaching but of who's turn it is and what players come through and why the England team have done nothing since 1966....

We are suffering at Crewe because the talent OR natural ability has dried up and the idea that a so called production line is the answer is misplaced. IMO and please feel free to disagree.

Go and see Greaves and come back with some snide comments.....IF you dare!

[Timmy58]

I am not and would never decry Greaves' ability nor that of George Best. And my comment concerning his drinking was not meant in any way as a criticism, merely that the view held by a former pro that coaching never achieved anything cannot have come from a clear mind. I agree that you can't coach natural ability. But You can enhance it and develop it and that is what coaching is about. Getting the best out of your ability. Why do you think cricketers have practices with coaches endeavoring to improve their technique. Truth of the matter is that all clubs and national teams have coaches and that is why certain aspects of the game are better today than they were, for example, 50 years ago.