What is the point of having a lavish academy then?

[somersetcrewe]

Not sure anyone read it a couple of days ago and I could find the link but some local lad that was working at Bentley here in Crewe was playing non league football and he has just been signed by Arsenal.

Yes, it was quite big news - but you're quoting exceptions. There will always be exceptions to rules.

I used to be a Spurs fan ..

Ah ha, now we're getting to the crux of your problem!

One game where Greaves received the ball from midfield and had his back to the goal and he flicked the ball up over his head and over that of the defenders behind him and as the GK came out he slotted the ball past him..

As I said above, you're quoting exceptions - but so can I.
Not many could do the move you describe by Jimmy Greaves.
Gazza could in '96 (although not sure of his youth background) but so could Dele Alli, and we all know what system he came from.

I acknowledge that you are not one of those calling for scrapping academies, although some are (itwasin), I also acknowledge that every system should be subject to review. But surely the large majority of people who run football, not just here but around the world, can't *all* be wrong?

My head hurts too!

[itwasin]

Yes, it was quite big news - but you're quoting exceptions. There will always be exceptions to rules.







Ah ha, now we're getting to the crux of your problem!






As I said above, you're quoting exceptions - but so can I.
Not many could do the move you describe by Jimmy Greaves.
Gazza could in '96 (although not sure of his youth background) but so could Dele Alli, and we all know what system he came from.

I acknowledge that you are not one of those calling for scrapping academies, although some are (itwasin), I also acknowledge that every system should be subject to review. But surely the large majority of people who run football, not just here but around the world, can't *all* be wrong?

My head hurts too!

I wonder if Somerset and others could give us a Clue! Who is going to sign the likes of Cooper,G.Ray,Kirk,H.Davis.Garret, just to mention a few who it feels as if they have been at the club for the past decade,and yet No Offers I wonder Why! Is it there not good Enough! Look at the past few years AJ been at club over 10 years ends up with Vale and now at Shrewsbury ,S.Miller at Carlisle this is going to be the trend as clubs in the Championship now want ready made players who perform week in not now and again.
The days when Crewe will get big fees is long over,how can a club like Crewe compete with the likes of Stoke and Manchester clubs Academys, Eyes wide open or Shut.

[out0lunch]

I think DA gives some good reasons here

http://www.crewealex.net/news/articl...s-3514711.aspx

[itwasin]

I think DA gives some good reasons here

http://www.crewealex.net/news/articl...s-3514711.aspx

Developing a first Team Squad he says I see ! One that can not beat Eastleigh Accrington, Lincoln,Morecambe, working well then !.He would say that would he not,wait till the results come in Davis learned the hard way.

[MikeSB]

I think DA gives some good reasons here

http://www.crewealex.net/news/articl...s-3514711.aspx

Yes, wise man who knows which side his bread is buttered...

We need to be careful about people arguing, even DA saying we have some players who could be good enough for L2 and maybe, maybe L1 at a push BUT that is not the reason we have a Cat2 academy, costing over a million pound per annum. Its to produce million pound players that could go into the PL or Championship and recover the costs of that level of academy. If we don't get that, then the academy will be downgraded. Its cost us 3m in the last four seasons with not much coming back and so unless someone is putting in some serious cash, then what is the alternative?

But nobody,not even Derek/Lowroof is it? has been able to offer a counter argument as why working parents just would not have the time to take their kids that much further from home than they do now and providing there is a decent level of academy and Cat3 is decent then that is what they will continue to do. There well could be exceptions and Somerset uses that word advisedly... But do we know of any parents doing that and taking them to Stoke, Manchester or Liverpool. I'm interested in this question and if they are then maybe someone can tell us the numbers?

I know one friend who's lad is currently at the academy and he says its one hell of an inconvenience for him and his wife and he wouldn't do it to go further afield.

But please...Dario didn't have an super dupa academy did he and we did fine and kids came through and then some bright spark said if we could treat it like a conveyor belt then the more kids we can attract, the more money we will make and the more coaches we can employ and then double the academy size and ditto...ditto..

A cat3 level is pretty decent...and we should do it without compromising the ethos of the club...imo and my headache is much better!

[bigroof]

Yes, wise man who knows which side his bread is buttered...

We need to be careful about people arguing, even DA saying we have some players who could be good enough for L2 and maybe, maybe L1 at a push BUT that is not the reason we have a Cat2 academy, costing over a million pound per annum. Its to produce million pound players that could go into the PL or Championship and recover the costs of that level of academy. If we don't get that, then the academy will be downgraded. Its cost us 3m in the last four seasons with not much coming back and so unless someone is putting in some serious cash, then what is the alternative?

But nobody,not even Derek/Lowroof is it? has been able to offer a counter argument as why working parents just would not have the time to take their kids that much further from home than they do now and providing there is a decent level of academy and Cat3 is decent then that is what they will continue to do. There well could be exceptions and Somerset uses that word advisedly... But do we know of any parents doing that and taking them to Stoke, Manchester or Liverpool. I'm interested in this question and if they are then maybe someone can tell us the numbers?

I know one friend who's lad is currently at the academy and he says its one hell of an inconvenience for him and his wife and he wouldn't do it to go further afield.

But please...Dario didn't have an super dupa academy did he and we did fine and kids came through and then some bright spark said if we could treat it like a conveyor belt then the more kids we can attract, the more money we will make and the more coaches we can employ and then double the academy size and ditto...ditto..

A cat3 level is pretty decent...and we should do it without compromising the ethos of the club...imo and my headache is much better!

Regarding parents bringing their boys to Reaseheath, the fact is that they do, whether some feel it to be an 'inconvenience' or not. If it were a Category 3 Academy, then it would only be for those 12 and upwards. Presumably there'd be some advanced notice of such a downgrading, so each family could decide whether or not to wait until their boy was 12, or hope that another Category 2 Academy would take the lad on - the nearest such is at Bolton Wanderers (but then again that might even be nearer for some families!)

You seem pretty sure, Mike, that a Category 3 Academy would suit the club's needs. It's true that Crewe haven't sold a player for £1m since 2013 (Murphy), but very few players have been sold for such money from clubs operating at Category 3, since the categories were introduced. It's possible, I grant you that.

Conventional wisdom has it that you have more chance of developing players whose attributes appeal to bigger clubs if you begin coaching them earlier. The FA believe that; that's why they offer a greater subsidy to clubs who are prepared to operate at Category Two, with its starting age of 8/9. Dario would argue that also, which is why, despite earlier success, within a different landscape, in producing saleable assets.

The club have spent a great deal of time and money over years, jumping through hoops and building up Reaseheath. I doubt that they're about to abandon the project at this point. You may sneer a little at Dave Artell's statement ("knowing which side his bread is buttered"), but he has had a couple of years at the heart of the economics of Reaseheath. I believe he has had the brief of trying to make economies; he may even have been successful enough - who knows? - to reduce the overall annual costs to the club.

Artell's point is one that a number of us have been trying to make on this board for a while: it's cheaper to populate the first team squad (by producing so many of its own players) than it would be operating by a lower category academy. That is simply because Category 3 is less likely to produce even four or five regular first team players of sufficient quality for the lower divisions of the league. Such other clubs focus on finding players for their team, at a higher wage than most of our youngsters, and - at best - hoping to supplement their squad with some of their own products. At Crewe it's the other way round: populate the team with our best youngsters, and find players from outside to complete the line-up, hoping they'll fill the gaps in the production line, and help improve the youngsters at the same time.

Of course, some clubs occasionally do very well with the Category 3 model; most of our size though, don't do any better than Crewe, and a number do worse and are out of the league. Be careful what you wish for, Mike.

For Crewe's model to work though, they have to sell. For all the talk of populating the team, that's still the aim, and the need. Since Murphy's sale, there has been a reported £300k for Clayton, but sadly, due to his injuries, no further cash for his appearances - some might yet trickle through now though, if he can belatedly succeed at Bolton. The club had a windfall of around £500k from the sell-on of Grant Hanley from Blackburn to Newcastle.

Of course this isn't enough. Apart from whether or not Artell, Lunt and the players can lift the team up the table, the other question is whether or not - amidst such anticipated success - our brighter young talents can show themselves to be worth more than they perhaps currently show. This is the nub of the matter. Davis gave a lot of young players a debut, but he never convinced me, nor others I suspect, that his heart was really in the Crewe Alexandra project, and didn't seem to be able to help young players thrive, and really show what they can do.

Can Dave and Kenny, with Baker's back-up, help the best youngsters show their best? If they can, then it's 'game on' again. Exeter sold a player for over a million about 18 months ago; it's possible then, for League Two clubs to ask for that sort of money; there is still a market for lower division clubs to sell to higher, despite the top divisions' keenness on ready-made foreign products .

A bit of confidence can work wonders, and that's what we must hope for now.

[MikeSB]

Derek,

Don't get me wrong and I don't think you do but I have a fundamental problem with 'coaching' per se only because I played at a good standard local leagues for a few years and I saw some poor players and some very good ones too and as I keep alluding to, nobody in professional or amateur football ever need 'coaching' because I didn't because playing football is not like learning mathematics at college or school. You were either naturally talented or you weren't. That was the case for a hundred years and so I cannot be convinced that model was wrong or broken. The same lads that were around then are still around now and as I said all clubs now have academies of some sort so that enables lads who are dead keen to go and try their luck. No problem! I don't even mind or care if the PL want to 'coach' 5 year olds, they can afford it. We surely can't and more the point we don't need to and to the point that you and others raise about us not paying high wages to our academy graduates? Does anyone here know how much they get when they play in the first team? Few of us actually know what wages all Pro's are on in these lower leagues and even non league. The point is you say we are getting them from our academy instead of elsewhere but sorry mate...But that's not actually true because of the high cost of getting there in the million pounds a year it all costs and so that has to go into the equation of getting seasoned pro's in vs the academy graduates and maybe another point that is missing..

We KNOW or ought to how good someone is BEFORE we sign them and not have to wait ten or more years then to find out they really cannot compete mentally or physically compared with the ready mades... I think you made the point the money saved from downgrading would quickly be swallowed up by higher wages we would need to pay but as we don't know what they are all on. I cannot comment other than to say that most lower league clubs don't pay transfer fees for their players and possible that because they don't have to fork out 750K a year on a Cat2 academy, the reason why so many go elsewhere than wanting to play here with a lower wage structure...

The problem we had was the Directors didn't put say half of the transfer income into the FIRST team which would have resulted in higher wages for better players to bring on the young lads that were good enough to come through. And we may well have established ourselves a L1 club then with an intention to stay there or even go higher, like Bournemouth have...How easy to drift down and down and down and not realise that was a big mistake...Investment in training is surely only to support the main purpose of your business which is to entertain the fans and to win games and play at the highest possible level. That is all! and that is better done with a good proportion of your team with seasoned Pro's and a handful of younger lads. We would expect that some of the ten years these kids spend at RH to come through. They surely would whatever the grade of academy but there are loads and loads of kids and teenagers the world over who have never ever seen inside of an academy who will be just as good and many better too...It was just a matter of casting your net wider and not looking inward to a pool of local kids when its pot luck whether they are or not and meanwhile another million per year is being spent...

You don't go and try and make your own car spare parts when they are available and ready made and dirt cheap..

[somersetcrewe]

And we may well have established ourselves a L1 club then with an intention to stay there or even go higher, like Bournemouth have...

Interesting discussion as ever, Mike (even if I dont agree with you! ) but haven't I told you before not to compare apples with oranges?
Choose your examples carefully.
Without Maxim Denim's millions, Bournemouth would still be where we are.
Ok, they appear to have a shrewd manager (coach? ) in Eddie Howe but without Denim, he wouldn't be able to pick the likes of Wilson, Boruc, Wilshire, etc in the first place!

That's a separate topic altogether.
Do we want a Maxim Denim here or do we continue to try to do it our way? - I know which one I'd choose.
Football sold its soul a long time ago - I hope it doesn't get to sell my club too ...?!!

It's not always about being at the top table you know (that's reserved for the big boys anyway), it's sometimes about how you get there in the first place!

[bigroof]

We would expect that some of the ten years these kids spend at RH to come through. They surely would whatever the grade of academy but there are loads and loads of kids and teenagers the world over who have never ever seen inside of an academy who will be just as good and many better too...It was just a matter of casting your net wider and not looking inward to a pool of local kids when its pot luck whether they are or not and meanwhile another million per year is being spent...
. [/QUOTE]

I think maybe you've painted yourself into a corner with your view on coaching, Mike. Consequently, you're searching for anything other than Crewe's 'model', as a viable alternative.

Crewe's route is a risk, of course, but so are your alternatives.

The question, surely, is 'why come to Crewe?'

In effect you're arguing that at some convenient point in the past, just after a couple of big sales, the club should've shifted its priorities, and somehow started paying higher wages to players brought in from outside, thus reducing the number of spots available in the team for their own products. Apart from maybe not being sustainable, that's also deceitful - to the boys and their families who had chosen Crewe.

Why would all those boys from "all around the world", come to Crewe? The coaching?! The wages?!

At the moment the first team is struggling; therefore it 'must be the academy's fault'.

It's up to Artell, Lunt, Baker, Morris, everyone, players young and old, to show otherwise. We'll have to wait to see.

[MikeSB]

I think maybe you've painted yourself into a corner with your view on coaching, Mike. Consequently, you're searching for anything other than Crewe's 'model', as a viable alternative.

Crewe's route is a risk, of course, but so are your alternatives.

The question, surely, is 'why come to Crewe?'

In effect you're arguing that at some convenient point in the past, just after a couple of big sales, the club should've shifted its priorities, and somehow started paying higher wages to players brought in from outside, thus reducing the number of spots available in the team for their own products. Apart from maybe not being sustainable, that's also deceitful - to the boys and their families who had chosen Crewe.
Why would all those boys from "all around the world", come to Crewe? The coaching?! The wages?!

No Derek, Dario was successful with late teenagers and cast offs from other clubs. Then some big money was made by sales and it worked for a while. That is why THAT was the Crewe way and then something changed. The Board then decided to expand and grow its training facilities because millions were coming in and then the costs went up and up so that Dario said we need to sell a player EACH season for half a million pounds to balance the costs of doing that. That is way before we had the FA coming to tell us how to run something we were already quite successful at. More coaches, more doctors, more this that and the other. Now we are paying in 750,000 pounds per season and so will that be recovered any time soon? In other words, we placed the academy far too high in our business plan and why its weaknesses have been revealed. Too many kids and not enough experience.

You still haven't given me numbers of any local kids that have gone to Liverpool, Manchester or Stoke because they have a Cat1 academy which people argue is better because of all the coaching and facilities? There may even be 'exceptions' to quote my good friend cider apple! Where parents may be in business or they get the grandparents to ferry them about but the model is not broken if we can only attract the local kids for obvious reasons I keep boring you with and then that depends on what 'natural' talent they have and why the term 'lean' years become appropriate.

I do know I saw some brilliant amateur players when I was playing who never thought of going Pro and arguably as good as I have seen at Gresty Road with all that coaching. I say again, nobody needs to be 'taught' to play football, its a natural sport and the evidence may well say it 'improves' players but again, give all these kids the opportunity to play against other kids and that is where they will learn more along with the talent they already have. Rodney Jack worked here as a 'Coach' and so who came through to play with his skills and so what exactly did he show them? How to run, swerve, swivel, balance the ball on your toe or head. So HOW then did his coaching contribution help the kids other than saying "WOW, how did you do that"!

The debate becomes sterile because we don't get to make the decisions, the Board does and it really will be interesting IF we can continue to fund a Cat2 academy..

Saunders 'chose' Crewe because we give them more opportunity right? And he could have gone to Southampton? So where does Dean live and what arrangements would he have to make IF he had chosen Saints for his lad? Digs, someone to look after him and what not. when there is one close by? Few seasoned players won't come here solely because of the wages and that is because the Cat2 academy takes so much of it. That needed be, There is a huge saving each year by having a Cat3, still attracting local kids and enable higher wages to be paid.

I think a lot of amateurs would come here to get a game from all over the world too....Its a case of will over complacency.