The Bcfc Academy....

[Mr Mosquito]

The fact that Doncaster were a Conference side a few years back is very irksome to me. In that time BCFC have not progressed and Doncaster have gone up two divisions and they more than matched us. The belief in our expensive academy producing enough loyal and classy players has cost this club dear over the last 6 seasons in my opinion. Money and management resources have been diverted unecessarily from the first team to molly coddling the academy players many of whom have proved disloyal.

Yesterday our academy players let us down to a degree: Cotteril can beat players but his final pass often let him down, Fortune very shakey and a real liability in defence, Skuse was too lightweight and was Woodman playing? I would have prefered to see the likes of new signings Dave Partridge and Alex Russell start in preference to our academy players because our academy players were often very far from being even olde Div 3 standard players. Why risk dropping precious points by blooding academy players that are far from the finished article?

One of the failures at the top level in this club is failure to see that the academy does not/cannot produce loyal and initially competent Div 3 standard players. The sacred cow that is the BCFC academy needs sacrificing so we can concentrate on finding more real bargain players of the calibre of Stewart and Heywood to take us forward to the Championship. Relying too much on the academy has proved a gamble that has not worked and has ultimately helped anchor us to this poxy division.

[Guest I bleed red 'n' white]

they more than matched us.

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what are you on about i can count one chance of theirs and about five of ours, if you cannot count our academy has brought £1mil in return and saved this club from going belly-up

[dargla]

we draw one game and to listening to many on this board our season is over.

Plenty more games to come

[bh_red]

pathetic. How on Cotterill and Skuse going to gain expereince and develop without playing games....... Those 2 have been outstanding in pre-season and deserve to take their places in the starting line up. Russell and Partridge have barely had a pre-season between them due to early injuries.

Skuse improved as the game went on, and Cotterill's cross was bad, but it was equal to anything murray was capable of prior to his Reading move.

If we had put in these 2 extra players even if fit.......how would the result been any different???? It would have then meant we would have 6 players making debuts as it was it was only 4. But it still showed that these players are not used to each other yet....... so I doubt the result would have been any different.

As for dropping the academy...............GET A GRIP ON REALITY! I thought you were actually one of the long-time respected posters on this site!

[Guest kez_0569]

taxi for goblin

[Mr Mosquito]

As for dropping the academy...............GET A GRIP ON REALITY!  I thought you were actually one of the long-time respected posters on this site!

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Respected??!!!! I've been banned many times from posting on this site......I dare to post ideas contrary to excepted beliefs. The best posters on this site are the ones to introduce debate and controversy - Bristol Boy, Richieb etc.

If I controlled the club I'd set up a decent scouting network like we had in the past, why have an academy when we can poach talent from other clubs like Swindon? Brooker and Heywood were great buys and this proves the talent is out there to take us forward if we look.

[Atticus]

what are you on about i can count one chance of theirs and about five of ours, if you cannot count our academy has brought £1mil in return and saved this club from going belly-up

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Let me just say again, wasnt this 1 million pound man a product from Chelsea's academy who we got when they released him??

So who have we sold on for a bucket load from our academy??

[Mr Mosquito]

Let me just say again, wasnt this 1 million pound man a product from Chelsea's academy who we got when they released him??

So who have we sold on for a bucket load from our academy??

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Marcus Stewart was a product from the Gas, Heywood came from Swindon, Bridges from Leeds - I think - they represent our finest players at the moment. We've just got to accept that our expensive to run academy does not produce enough loyal and competent players to take the club forward. As you say Leroy Lita came from Chelsea. Scale back the academy and use the money and management resources saved to help the first team gain promotion. If only we could of signed Sean Thornton from Sunderland as well as Bridges and Stewart.

[Guest ashtonyate]

Marcus Stewart was a product from the Gas, Heywood came from Swindon, Bridges from Leeds - I think - they represent our finest players at the moment. We've just got to accept that our expensive to run academy does not produce enough loyal and competent players to take the club forward. As you say Leroy Lita came from Chelsea. Scale back the academy and use the money and management resources saved to help the first team gain promotion. If only we could of signed Sean Thornton from Sunderland as well as Bridges and Stewart.

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How dare you put such things about the Academy,That my job by the way Skuse was the only one in his year to be taken on.Show how we can pick them. I have asked this question before If we never had an academy would we start one???

[bobby]

Some interesting points, and another discussion about the value of the academy!

To some extent I agree with questioning the role of the academy - it is not a sacred cow and questions should be asked about its performance.

Some of our academy products do look particularly lightweight - compare Skuse with Keogh from Stoke's academy for example. Skill and ability are all very well at this level, but as we have seen over the last few years a bit of muscle is needed as well. That I presume is why we brought Brooker and got rid of Miller, and brough Heywood in. Problem is, we are now missing that muscle in midfield, Skuse is good but still too lightweight?

Money going into the academy does need to be producing players who can play at League 1 level, we need them now to get us out of this division. In Skuse, Goldbourne, Cotterill and Woodman we may have those players, but not consistent enough yet and all very slight/small.

We do attract other players from other academys - Brown and Gillespie, and Fortune (I think?).

Against the cost you also need to balance the attraction of the academy - remember Marcus Stewart went to the gas, despite being a city fan, because they had a better youth set up than we did! Maybe, if we'd had an academy (or equivalent) then, he would have been a city player all those years ago?

Also, players like Lita, Fortune and Gillespie came to city because we had the academy and because we had first look at them, before other clubs without academys could get in on the act.

So, if the academy keeps producing players that make it into the first team (Doc, Coles, Carey, Woodman, Phillips, Burnell, Skuse, Cotterill, Goldbourne etc) then it has a worth. Add to that the young players from elsewhere we will attract and its worth increases. Balance that with the need to bring in experience from elsewhere and I think you are pretty much where we are with the team at the moment.

It will certainly be interesting to see how some of the new players and young academy players do this season.

[A Horse With No Name]

I have always maintained that the academy was a huge waste of resources with little or no end product. However, i believe that in Skuse and Cotterill, and Golbourne we have 3 excellent prospects. They will all turn into fine players, in a higher division. And therein lies the problem. As with Lita, Anyinsah, Hill and Rosenior, they will all get their heads turned by the agents. Maybe not this year, maybe not next, but soon an offer will come in "that we cannot refuse" as with Lita, and hey ho the academy can afford to be funded for another year. Remember that the big boys are already watching Cotterill and Skuse, so the better they become the quicker they will be gone. Whatever amount we get for them, the pro academists will always say "ah but we got them for nothing in the first place". Catch 22 situation really, and I'm not sure which side of the fence I'm on at the moment.

[Nibor]

Having repaid about £1.5m of it's alleged £3.5m cost in the last few months through outgoing transfer fees the case for closing the academy has never ever been weaker.

Each crop of players through is better than the last, no reason to suspect this won't continue. How anyone can watch Skuse and Cotterill play and then suggest shutting it is beyone me.

Us being anchored to this division has bugger all the do with the academy for two reasons. 1) The players from the academy that have played in out first team have in general been better than any signings we've made 2) None of the money spent on the academy would have been spent on the first team at all if we didn't have one.

Nibor

[BATH BOY]

Academy players that have reached Championship and above

Doherty (QPR)

Coles (HULL)

Hill (PRESTON)

Carey (COVENTRY)

Aniyansah (PRESTON)

Lita (READING)

Rosenior (FULHAM)

Brown Aaron (QPR)

At City

Golbourne

Cotterill

Skuse

Phillips

But our academy isnt working!

Taxi required for those who disagree.

[A Horse With No Name]

Academy players that have reached Championship and above

Doherty (QPR)

Coles (HULL)

Hill (PRESTON)

Carey (COVENTRY)

Aniyansah (PRESTON)

Lita (READING)

Rosenior (FULHAM)

Brown Aaron (QPR)

At City

Golbourne

Cotterill

Skuse

Phillips

But our academy isnt working!

Taxi required for those who disagree.

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But whats the point in all our academy players reaching the Championship if the parent club is being left behind?

[Barneyredballs]

Forget loyalty these days. A loyal player is probably one who knows which sides his bread is buttered on financially by the club he is at, or knows he can't cut it elsewhere.

A combo of free agents (6 this summer) and players coming through the academy should put us in a strong position. Granted, bigger clubs (unfortunately there will always be bigger clubs than ours) will probably come in and cream off the top; but with good contracts and add ons; we should self-finance the academy and still make £.

How many clubs have actually spent this summer? We have sold to the tune of nearly £1.4; which in todays market is huge.

Isn't it a Premier League rule that any club there must have an academy of there own? sure we are not there, or anywhere near; but having an academy is a forward thinking step. The question still remians whether our academy is run to the best of our/its' ability?

There will inevitably be players who don't make it through the academy and onto professional books. I'm guessing we probably have a higher than average return on academy to professional players. anyone know of any figures in comparison to other clubs?

[Nibor]

Fortune

Harley

Woodman

also in the first team squad.

The main problem for the academy is the way that compensation is calculated when clubs from higher divisions nick talented youngsters, it doesn't take into account the cost of training the inevitable percentage who won't make it.

Nibor

[Nibor]

But whats the point in all our academy players reaching the Championship if the parent club is being left behind?

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How does that reflect on the academy's performance?

Is now the time to wheel out the "look at all the players we've paid money for that left for free" counter argument?

Academy costs have gone down year after year (it was far too expensive at the start) and the quality of the players is going up.

Nibor

[RedUn]

Money and management resources have been diverted unecessarily from the first team to molly coddling the academy players many of whom have proved disloyal.

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The academy has done its job in producing good class players, witness how many are already playing at a higher level (because of our failure to win promotion) and others are bound do so, hopefully with us.

What you need to do (because we know ashtonyate can't/won't) is work out what the net costs have been in the seven years the academy has been running of:

a) players recruited at schoolboy/scholar ages (u/19)

b) older recruits (20+)

You will need to include (estimates of) figures for transfer values in and out, signing-on fees, agents fees, loyalty fees and wages in each category.

Unfortunately, so much of the required information is impossible to derive for certain from the club accounts which, I have been told, are kept "simple" (ten pages of financial gobbledegook and one-third of turnover described as "other income/expenditure")

Then compare the figures you get to the number of appearances made by both sets of players in the same period to get a figure for £££s/player/match in each case.

Then consider how much more it would have cost if the appearances made by the youngsters had been paid at the journeyman rate!

[Ian M]

To those who advocate closing the Academy, do you advocate scrapping our youth system entirely or downgrading to Centre of Excellence status?

If the second option, you do realise the running a CoE isn't exactly cost free either?!

[A Horse With No Name]

To those who advocate closing the Academy, do you advocate scrapping our youth system entirely or downgrading to Centre of Excellence status?

If the second option, you do realise the running a CoE isn't exactly cost free either?!

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It has got me wondering if the club have considered putting the Academy up for sponsorship. If you can imagine that it would not be the Bristol City Academy anymore but rather (for instance) the Hirerite Academy. Imagine every time in the papers or the TV, a young player was mentioned as coming through the Hirerite Academy. Surely that would be worth a large chunk of the running costs. I mean, we sponsor out everything else.

[Mr Mosquito]

The academy has done its job in producing good class players, witness how many are already playing at a higher level (because of our failure to win promotion) and others are bound do so, hopefully with us.

What you need to do (because we know ashtonyate can't/won't) is work out what the net costs have been in the seven years the academy has been running of:

a) players recruited at schoolboy/scholar ages (u/19)

b) older recruits (20+)

You will need to include (estimates of) figures for transfer values in and out, signing-on fees, agents fees, loyalty fees and wages in each category.

Unfortunately, so much of the required information is impossible to derive for certain from the club accounts which, I have been told, are kept "simple" (ten pages of financial gobbledegook and one-third of turnover described as "other income/expenditure")

Then compare the figures you get to the number of appearances made by both sets of players in the same period to get a figure for £££s/player/match in each case.

Then consider how much more it would have cost if the appearances made by the youngsters had been paid at the journeyman rate!

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Nice one RedUn, perhaps the club should make the real cost of the academy more transparent and that cost should include dislocation of management coaching time from the all important first team set up.

All the expensively groomed ex-academy players playing for clubs in a higher division are, therefore, now not benefitting the fortunes of our first team on the field of play where it counts. An analogy I can think of is buying a girl drinks all night only for someone to chat her up and walk off with her when yer backs turned

[RedUn]

An analogy I can think of is buying a girl drinks all night only for someone to chat her up and walk off with her when yer backs turned

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Bitter experience RG? ... the trick is to be less of a loser in the girl's eyes.

[bobby]

It has got me wondering if the club have considered putting the Academy up for sponsorship. If you can imagine that it would not be the Bristol City Academy anymore but rather (for instance) the Hirerite Academy. Imagine every time in the papers or the TV, a young player was mentioned as coming through the Hirerite Academy. Surely that would be worth a large chunk of the running costs. I mean, we sponsor out everything else.

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I'm pretty sure the Academy already receives sponsorship monies, in fact I think DAS now sponsor the Academy rather than the first team!

[kiwicolin]

we used to get players in that were at the end of their playing days.

they were just there to pick up their pay cheque and didn't care about the

club.

it is great to see all these youngsters come on to play for this club we

all love.these players will improve and if they get sold for millions then

so be it.the money will be put back into the academy and we will be

able to get new players.

some of the young players have been playing for their country so the academy

must be doing something right.

also lets forget about the football side of things.these youngsters are getting

a better education and if we find a little gem then they would be able to

communicate with the media and the fans without sounding stupid.

this has to be the way forward.we cannot spend millions on young

players.

[Mr Mosquito]

Bitter experience RG? ... the trick is to be less of a loser in the girl's eyes.

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Not exactly RedUn, I got the girl I wanted even with my lack of financial resources at the time. The Mrs must of seen me as a winner in many respects - I didn't even have a job when I met her - thanks to Thatcher and Co stating that unemployment is a price worth paying.

[southy354]

y did tinnion pick woodman and fotune ahead of golbourne and keogh ?

[Mr Mosquito]

y did tinnion pick woodman and fotune ahead of golbourne and keogh ?

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You'll have to direct that question at the Tinman himself as only he would know.

As for Mr Woodman, I mentioned him in my initial post, was he playing? 'cause he certainly went missing for large periods in the game and left us dangerously exposed on many occasions.

[Guest I bleed red 'n' white]

Let me just say again, wasnt this 1 million pound man a product from Chelsea's academy who we got when they released him??

So who have we sold on for a bucket load from our academy??

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tommy doc 100,000

danny coles 200,000

joe anyinsah 125,000

matt hill 100,000

amaankwaah 50,000

joe burnell around 40,000?

also you muppet lita wasn't taken in to start he was put in our academy:

http://www.bcfc.premiumtv.co.uk/page/Squad...,,10327,00.html

[Guest ashtonyate]

Just answer this if we never had an academy would we start one

[robins72]

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion Ashtonyate. Shame you can't make some of your posts a little more constructive. Some of them sound like a rant at young talented players that want to actually play for the club.