So it begins

Has this thread been hi jacked by another discussion on our youth set up?

Maybe, but as its central to the existence of the club as some think then maybe it should be on EVERY thread.

Every club including non league have an academy or a place where local kids can get coaching and games. Its now just a matter of how much money you want to put into them. Almost all L1 and L2 clubs won't want one with the new FA rules as its far too expensive because of its insistence on full time staff/coaches etc. IF it was a good as people assume then better supported clubs in these leagues would surely have the same level as us. But they don't.

The problem is as we see. Colclough will be tempted by clubs paying more then we can and if he is as good as some people think and I am one of them, will say he has to go where the money is NOW, as he can still move upwards and onwards. That is no longer the selling point at CAFC as it used to be.

There must be hundreds of youngsters emerging from all

"Almost all L1 and L2 clubs won't want one with the new FA rules as its far too expensive because of its insistence on full time staff/coaches etc. IF it was a good as people assume then better supported clubs in these leagues would surely have the same level as us. But they don't."

It's expensive to set up in the first place. With the demands of the first team not falling by the wayside, this explains why many of the smaller clubs will not set themselves up to the level Crewe have, rather than your wholly simplistic conclusion. It's worth remembering that Crewe haven't set themselves to be geared toward youth since only yesterday, it's decades of development in the making.

"That should in principle allow us to compete with clubs our size on wages and also to still have a few kids coming through IF they are good enough."

Wholly bereft of understanding the financial muscle of Crewe Alexandra football club. The "principle" you write of will allow us to compete on salaries only with ot

I am convinced that there are people out there who think that if we downgraded or even dispensed with our Academy that we would then be able to afford to pay wages that would attract championship or maybe even Premier league players. This, of course, may be the case but I am equally convinced it would be the road towards not having a football league club in the town.

[quote="CrewieFlyboy"]I am too a massive supporter of “The Crewe Way”, also. I have always bored anybody who will listen of the continuous growth that we have all experienced at The Alex since I left South Cheshire back in 1986 at the tender age of 19. But having said that I think that is the big difference now, there is nothing tangible to point to that as a mere supporter of the club that I can say, “yeah Crewe aren’t a big club, they never likely to play in the Premier League, but from where we were look at what Crewe are now”. Because for the last eight years now the club has stagnated and now even looks to be going backwards.

The youth set up revolutionary in its day has been copied, caught up with and in some cases overtaken by other clubs. The ground development seems to have ground to a halt, we must be one of the few clubs in the league without a scoreboard or executive boxes. But worse than those incidentals, are that there seems to be a massive

[quote="Nexus_6_Replicant"

It's expensive to set up in the first place. With the demands of the first team not falling by the wayside, this explains why many of the smaller clubs will not set themselves up to the level Crewe have, rather than your wholly simplistic conclusion. It's worth remembering that Crewe haven't set themselves to be geared toward youth since only yesterday, it's decades of development in the making.

"That should in principle allow us to compete with clubs our size on wages and also to still have a few kids coming through IF they are good enough."

Wholly bereft of understanding the financial muscle of Crewe Alexandra football club. The "principle" you wri

Mike, first thing to say – it’s great having you back on the board. Not sure if you ever left but you have been conspicuously quiet for a while. But your arguments are always sensible, well reasoned, well thought out and (for me at least) a bloody interesting read, hi-jack or no hi-jack! ;D

One slight flaw though – I don’t tend to agree with them! :D

For example, you say;

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Originally Posted by MikeSB

Coaching does NOT produce talented footballers ...

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...but if that were the case, how come Fergie (some say one of the best coaches of all time), could not make Platty an England International (and captain)? Same for Robbie Savage and Wales? How come Man City (and whoever was in charge of them at the time), could not make Neil Lennon a Northern Ireland legend?

As for taking cast-offs from PL or CC clubs rather than producing our own, why is Greg Leigh thinking twice about signing? – and he’s already sampled life at the Alex. Why were we never really in the fram

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Originally Posted by spitfiresi

...the arrogance of some Crewe fans with regard to our youth structure astounds me.

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Please don't confuse arrogance with pride!

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All the hundreds of academy players who are not good enough for the PL and the CC will come here for NOTHING and we can see them in the here and now both physically and football ability and not have to wait ten or 15 years and a few million pounds to find out the answer to that question?

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They won't come here for NOTHING - where did you get that idea from? It seems to me you are naive about today's football realities. The ones that are good enough will have options, and they'll most likely go for the best deal - as the vast majority of players do. Many of those dropping out of PL/CC Academies will never play professional football - they'll be good players no doubt, but not good enough.

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Coaching does NOT produce talented footballers otherwise every single kid would be PL standard and so what is it that makes the difference?

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This literally is a ridiculous statement. Coaching cannot make everybody equal, and nobody in their right mind would suggest otherwi

Nexus, I have said in the past that without Dario and the Academy that we may not have a club to support. This may or may not be the case but I would prefer not to leave it to chance.

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Originally Posted by somersetcrewe

The youth set up revolutionary in its day has been copied, caught up with and in some cases overtaken by other clubs

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As a matter of interest, overtaken by whom?
If you mean Man City ...?!!![/quote]

Well yes to but one, there are also a good number of other Premier League sides, as well as the likes of Wolverhampton Wanderers, Middleborough, Peterborough and arguably one or two more. But that is the standard the Crewe academy are competing with. Yes there are a number of clubs that don’t have the youth set up that Crewe have, but they don’t look to compete with the likes of any of the clubs in the Category two or above level of the EPP. But as Crewe are in that arena they have to compete or except that may be they just don’t have what it takes to be able to produce the players for whatever reason that other clubs do. Crewe are no longer the first port of call for kids