Wayne Rooney?

[MikeSB]

First, I agree that nothing we say on here will alter anything at all. Secondly, folks don't have to read every post as some or most probably don't and it is a boring and tedious subject but its all central to our club's ethos and performances and why its a very important topic.

My case is that academies are a recent innovation that takes thousands of kids off the street (no bad thing whatever the outcome) in the 'hope' that a few will make it to the professional standard required. In the olden days lol they weren't required OR needed because most kids play football as its our national game or was and so we all tried to get into the school team. I wasn't good enough. So the ones that did had some to coin a phrase, some special talent. Then when we left school, we then went on to try and join a local amateur league and I did and became quite a good player imo and thousands did this up and down the country. Wayne Rooney is typical of what happened next. A local scout noticed him or i

[AlexLeicester]

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WR was noticed by a bloke standing watching school kids play games. It showed the system worked fine and still would today imo.

I'm not going to pick holes in your, IMO overlong post. But this one sentence seems to sum up the contradiction.
A random youngster, totally undeveloped as a physical footballer, is seen by a random bloke, on a random day at a random location.

That's called coincidence. It certainly doesn't show 'the system works'. That is an not a system. The vast majority of great discoveries have resulted from years of painstaking research, not coincidence. Then again, even I wasn't around when fire or the wheel were discovered.

I think the rest of your post adds more to my argument and belief in the Academy than yours. But that's just my opinion.

[bigroof]

Mike, coaching has been around longer than you make out. Some might argue that it was Ron Greenwood's coaching at West Ham which enabled England to win the World Cup, given the influence in that tournament of Moore, Hurst and Peters. In fact it was Hurst - the classic 'coached to be better' forward, who displaced the more 'maverick' Greaves.
But what all this has to do with this thread, and the questions over Crewe Alex's season, I don't know.

Edit: my head must be spinning - this is the Wayne Rooney thread!

[MikeSB]

Derek, do you remember what Greenwood said about Martin Peters?

Something like, "He was a gifted footballer ahead of his time"..

Natural talent my friend will always float to the surface..

[MikeSB]

AL said.

I'm not going to pick holes in your, IMO overlong post. But this one sentence seems to sum up the contradiction.
A random youngster, totally undeveloped as a physical footballer, is seen by a random bloke, on a random day at a random location.

That's called coincidence. It certainly doesn't show 'the system works'. That is an not a system. The vast majority of great discoveries have resulted from years of painstaking research, not coincidence. Then again, even I wasn't around when fire or the wheel were discovered.

I think the rest of your post adds more to my argument and belief in the Academy than yours. But that's just my opinion.[/quote]

Sorry please disagree all you want to AL.

But that is exactly how it was back then and noway adds more to anyone's belief in an academy structure UNLESS they want to believe it of course. I always tend to be ahead of my time!

We WILL downgrade our academy some time. Its inevitable. Probably when Dario has departed. He is probabl

[bigroof]

Derek, do you remember what Greenwood said about Martin Peters?

Something like, "He was a gifted footballer ahead of his time"..

Natural talent my friend will always float to the surface..

It was Ramsey, Mike, not Greenwood, and he described Peters as being "10 years ahead of his time". Maybe, just maybe, he was implying that we were heading for a new era of well-coached players having a greater awareness of space - on the pitch that is, not the solar system and the Milky Way.

[fatfakir]

The only thing the Wayne Rooney story proves is that Everton had (probably still have) a good scouting system that enabled them to spot his talent at the age of 9.

[jtcrewe]

Remember a lot of lads before they are picked up by academies are playing Sunday league. Once they go into an academy, it's a step up. Some will perform, some won't. The gulf in class is comparable to adult football now. If I was to go from smashing 50+ a season in on a Sunday morning and then get picked up by Crewe or another lower division team, I would be out of my depth. But some would succeed.

The young lads will find it easier on a Sunday, rather than an academy, as they will be surrounded by players of similar or better ability.

Rooney scored all them goals before he was picked up by Everton because he probably played against players who weren't as good as him ability wise. I do vaguely remember in his book he scored around 130 goals in one season, I think when he was about 12/13 years old at Everton, which probably meant that he was still a class above his peers, but the coaching was evidently helping him.

No one will score that many goals in the modern game in a season i

[Timmy58]

Wayne Rooney was a raw talent spotted as a schoolboy and signed for Everton aged 9. He will definitely have been coached at Everton as a 9 year old, that is without question. That coaching along with the teaching he would have had at United will have made him the player he is today. Without it I doubt he would have attained the levels he has.

[MikeSB]

Wayne Rooney was a raw talent spotted as a schoolboy and signed for Everton aged 9. He will definitely have been coached at Everton as a 9 year old, that is without question. That coaching along with the teaching he would have had at United will have made him the player he is today. Without it I doubt he would have attained the levels he has.

I think we will have to agree to disagree. See Dixie Dean for proof.