The Academy

[Bobtherobin]

This is a genuine question for those that follow things a little closer than I do, but I hope someone can help.

 

We keep being told that we have this amazing production line of young talent coming through that in theory are championship ready - based on JL saying we have a top 6 ready squad, and the view that we need to use the academy before looking outside as Tinnion said last week. But the U21s have just had a six-match winless run until they beat Colchester United today. How are these players as good as we are being told? 

[Leabrook]

1 minute ago, Ryan said:

This is a genuine question for those that follow things a little closer than I do, but I hope someone can help.

 

We keep being told that we have this amazing production line of young talent coming through that in theory are championship ready - based on JL saying we have a top 6 ready squad, and the view that we need to use the academy before looking outside as Tinnion said last week. But the U21s have just had a six-match winless run until they beat Colchester United today. How are these players as good as we are being told? 

They are very young, playing against kids 2-3 years older.  I really wouldn’t look at results when they are that age. 

[GrahamC]

This has been covered a few times before.

Firstly the likes of Palmer-Houlden & Thomas have been playing league football elsewhere instead of for the U21s.

Secondly due to squad size loads of them, Yeboah & Knight-Lebel in particular are already with the first team.

Next we have a fair few who probably will move on at the end of the season because at 21/22 they haven’t made the breakthrough.

There is definitely a bit of hype by a certain person now effectively running the football side, but I wouldn’t judge the quality by the recent results.

Edited December 5, 2023 by GrahamC

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, Ryan said:

This is a genuine question for those that follow things a little closer than I do, but I hope someone can help.

 

We keep being told that we have this amazing production line of young talent coming through that in theory are championship ready - based on JL saying we have a top 6 ready squad, and the view that we need to use the academy before looking outside as Tinnion said last week. But the U21s have just had a six-match winless run until they beat Colchester United today. How are these players as good as we are being told? 

There are a number of Academy players who are either out on loan, injured or involved training with the first team who aren’t playing currently for the U21s, hence the use of 17, 18 year old scholars.

If any of the loan players are yet up to Championship standard remains to be seen.

As I said elsewhere the bigging up of the Academy is a red herring used in part to justify the tightening of the purse strings.

 

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, GrahamC said:

This has been covered a few times before.

Firstly the likes of Palmer-Houlden & Thomas have been playing league football elsewhere instead of for the U21s.

Secondly due to squad size loads of them, Yeboah & Knight-Lebel in particular are already with the first team.

Next we have a fair few who probably will move on at the end of the season because at 21/22 they haven’t made the breakthrough.

There is definitely a bit of hype by a certain person now effectively running the football side, but I wouldn’t judge the quality by the recent results.

Apologies I was typing as you posted virtually the same post.

[Port Said Red]

Can I also add that Colchester's Academy has a very good reputation and is often raided by Ipswich and Norwich for talent.

[Charlie BCFC]

49 minutes ago, Ryan said:

This is a genuine question for those that follow things a little closer than I do, but I hope someone can help.

 

We keep being told that we have this amazing production line of young talent coming through that in theory are championship ready - based on JL saying we have a top 6 ready squad, and the view that we need to use the academy before looking outside as Tinnion said last week. But the U21s have just had a six-match winless run until they beat Colchester United today. How are these players as good as we are being told? 

Think the U21 are a weird one to judge as you don’t know what team you’re going to get or what teams you’re going to face in regards to first team players. As @GrahamC mentioned a lot of the regulars are with the first team/out on loan. U18 and U16 however according to Tinnion at the fans forum had some very good results recently and there was one player (could be Meerholz but pretty sure he said 16 years old which he’s not) who had interest from the prem so immediately he trained with the first team last week

[Sheltons Army]

Was going to suggest @petehinton is the man to ask , but to save him retyping ,  here is the reply he kindly wrote in response to a similar question I asked a few weeks back

On 14/11/2023 at 12:25, petehinton said:

From what I’ve seen, there’s definitely some really exciting ones - but in defence of Tinnion, he may have meant even better in comparison to their ages, I.e arguably, or pretty much guaranteed, Raekwon Nelson is better than Semenyo was at 17, etc etc. What I would say is, they are all ‘proper’ athletes. Seriously. They’re all ******* massive, and rapid.

Nelson, Ephraim, Jamie KL and Elijah Morrison have been the standouts for me of the ‘next batch who could come through’ whenever I’ve seen them. But you just really can never tell how they’ll step up into first team, how they’ll do on loans, etc. Every case is so different, and you’ll always get surprises, like how much Tommy came along after the space of about 2 first team games. 
 

If I had to lay a bet on the next ‘big money’ nest egg sale that’s in and amongst it, it’s Ephraim. I can understand some reservations around his rawness etc, but the lad is only recently 17 (!!!!) and he’s a bundle of pure speed and trickery, that not many will be able to deal with within the next year or two.
 

I still have really high hopes for Jamie KL, has always looked like a real complete CB to me over the years, and I think he showed he’d be able to be trusted to start based on his cameo at Cardiff. 

 

[Bobtherobin]

Thanks for the responses. Definitely helped me understand it a bit more. I genuinely want to believe the hype but am not sure what to believe from the club at the moment. I accept that results at one age group isnt the best metric to make a judgement. 

 

 

[petehinton]

I think there is a blend of genuine hype to believe, bigging up the academy to help with the narrative of not spending money on players, and we’ve just been so used for so many years producing one player who’s maybe good enough to have a stint in the first team then be sold a few years later that (we pretty much went from Skuse….huge gap….Bryan) now having a solid group at most ages is still a bit of a novelty. 
 

IMO the ones I’ve mentioned above are the ones I’m most excited about, and for anyone who was there Sunday will see what I mean about athletes. Meerholz is an absolute unit, 6ft 2, ball playing lefty and he’s just 17. 
 

The one thing I do roll my eyes at a bit, and I understand why they do it, is HPC this, HPC that. It’s a lovely building. Nice facilities. They are brilliant pitches. But you are cramming in first team, all academy ages, the womens side and all non playing staff into that building. Pearson made reference to it in his final days, which also probably went down like a bucket of sick seeing as it’s heaven on earth to the club, essentially saying if we were to grow as a club and operation which is ultimately the aim, it’s not really fit for purpose. So I don’t know what the expansion potentially is, or if it’s even possible?
 

Is it a damn sight better than first team being in failand in crap facilities and the academy being on the motorway? Without a doubt, but the narrative it’s best in class for the division, that it’s somehow saved the academy and it’s the reason that Semenyo, Scott etc flourished is baloney, imo. They flourished because they’re good enough and were blooded really, really well at the perfect time for their development. 
 

Category is another point I’ve seen raised. One thing I do agree with, within reason, and Tinnion covered this last year, is there’s no real point in becoming category 1 from the category 2 we are now. Running costs, quality of coaching (costs) become much higher, it doesn’t particularly protect us from a bigger club coming in and taking someone they really want to, just means the compensation is much higher & still a pittance for a PL club. We’d also be grouped into cat 1 league, so against Chelsea, Man City, United etc who take incredible pride (rightly) in winning it all at academy level, and rarely let their top players at those ages go out on loan in order to fulfill winning it all, so in short we’d get absolutely pumped most weeks. We also can’t be cat 1 with the facilities we have atm (see above HPC point!), so would need upgrading if we ever wanted to as we don’t have the right indoor areas (and I think 
 

My other gripe is recruitment and scouting. My fear (and there’s very recent proof of this), but the approach from the club seems to me to currently be “well we’re the best in the area, if they’re good enough we’ll hear about them” or they’ll fall on our lap with recommendations like antoine and Alex did. That’s not really how it works. A 15 year old lad from the area signed a 2 year YTS at Newcastle last month after a short trial, and after City (and others, tbf) weren’t interested because of his lack of academy experience up until being 15. Low and behold, we became interested after hearing Newcastle were.  There’s some top 21s at Southampton who are from Bristol and been overlooked, have made it into matchday squads there, and who I have no doubt would be in and around our first team this season. Maybe even starters honestly. 
 

A few on here know (and I don’t mind knowing) but i talent scout for North Somerset RTC & have done for a few years now, and being out and about most weekends over that period I have seen City staff (scouts) at games once (no typo). But have seen Villa & West Brom staff a fair few times. It’s a huge shame and also just something I don’t understand at all. The quality at all ages at Avon League/woodspring levels these days is extremely, extremely strong. 
 

A bit of a ramble, but it’s all the above - along with the nest egg, best squad ever comments - that make me feel even more passionately / protective over it (especially being involved in it from a youth etc perspective). In what strange universe we can harp on about all our success & have the club Pat themselves on the back each day about certain things (and also not promoting that you can watch the 18s and 21s for free entry and parking multiple times each month!!!), and yet we are left with having Joe James (who came through at North Somerset, even more extra points for being a Kewstoke lad) as our only fit RB across all senior age groups in the club is an absolute travesty to me.
 

The lad is a pretty mid-range u18 player, in the nicest way possible, hardly featured in the 21s yet we are meant to laud him being thrown in when he’s not ready, along with throwing Jamie KL on when we’re chasing the game as we’re so out on our feet, in a game that was then basically outed as being make or break for our manager of 2.5 years as a major success for the club??? How is that good for their development when JJ drops straight out the squad immediately afterwards.  Feels like some strange dystopia to me. 
 

Anyway, I massively digress, just a real passion and interest of mine.  A 10 minute wait for the bus well spent

[Davefevs]

Excellent post @petehinton 

I think there is a long list of players that have been passed on to the club that didn’t get taken up.  From the highs of Ollie Watkins and Jared Bowen to several others who’ve forged pro careers.  Don’t get me wrong, they can’t take everyone, but the impression I get from the people I talk to is a bit of “we know best” arrogance!

In terms of first team, it’s always impossible to gauge who will break through, but my thoughts are we are gonna have a fallow 12-18 months because the ones who would’ve got some opportunity in that period, already have.

[petehinton]

9 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

Excellent post @petehinton 

I think there is a long list of players that have been passed on to the club that didn’t get taken up.  From the highs of Ollie Watkins and Jared Bowen to several others who’ve forged pro careers.  Don’t get me wrong, they can’t take everyone, but the impression I get from the people I talk to is a bit of “we know best” arrogance!

In terms of first team, it’s always impossible to gauge who will break through, but my thoughts are we are gonna have a fallow 12-18 months because the ones who would’ve got some opportunity in that period, already have.

Yep, those two, Butland - Clevedon, Alfie Jones - Long Ashton(!!!), Kammi Doyle & Will Merry at Saints (Redland), there’s probably even more if you scratch further  

As you say, always going to be some that slip through, but some should be too big to miss the net!

[Lrrr]

1 hour ago, petehinton said:

The one thing I do roll my eyes at a bit, and I understand why they do it, is HPC this, HPC that. It’s a lovely building. Nice facilities. They are brilliant pitches. But you are cramming in first team, all academy ages, the womens side and all non playing staff into that building. Pearson made reference to it in his final days, which also probably went down like a bucket of sick seeing as it’s heaven on earth to the club, essentially saying if we were to grow as a club and operation which is ultimately the aim, it’s not really fit for purpose. So I don’t know what the expansion potentially is, or if it’s even possible?
 

Is it a damn sight better than first team being in failand in crap facilities and the academy being on the motorway? Without a doubt, but the narrative it’s best in class for the division, that it’s somehow saved the academy and it’s the reason that Semenyo, Scott etc flourished is baloney, imo. They flourished because they’re good enough and were blooded really, really well at the perfect time for their development. 

The HPC is plenty fit for purpose, the building is sectioned in first team and academy areas so you don't have crossover, not sure which side the womens team use but will be at times when the first team aren't using the same section. Every academy age group won't be inside, only 18's & 21's will be around day by day and then their pitches along with women and rest of academy (when light) will be based down on the old pitches, the top pitches are first team only barring the show pitch for matches. I won't comment on the 'saving the academy' stuff as I agree players flourished because of talent and opportunity, but take away say Leicester, Southampton etc who've spent plenty of time in the Prem and yes, our training facilities will be right up amongst the best in the league. 

[Guest]

Very interesting post from Pete, obviously knows a lot about youth football.

I’ve already commented on the hype around the academy, and it’s doing no favours to those lads who are learning their trade.

We must stop using Scott and Semenyo as a yardstick, one a once in a generation player, the other a player bound for a top six club.

Both incidentally rejected by other clubs at a young age.

My understanding was that we have a number of local scouts so I am surprised that they aren’t more visible.

The question I would ask is, is it worth concentrating on recruiting older lads rather than 8,9,10 year olds?
 

The failure rate amongst that age group must be very high, so is the time and money spent of value?

[Jacki]

I know a fair bit about the academy and have been around it for a number of years now.

I see a lot of the lads coming through and there’s no doubt there are loads of talented boys. We compete well with most of the clubs we come up against, beating the likes of Plymouth, Exeter and Swindon and having cracking games against Swansea and Cardiff. Same applies when we play the likes of Southampton and Villa. It gets more difficult when we come up against the Chelseas and Arsenals of this world but even then the games are usually competitive until their quality and fitness shines through at the end of the games  

The boys develop at different rates and there are one or two outstanding players in our age group. Those aside they all step up and look excellent at different times, with one or two exceptions although that view is subjective of course  

Overall (although I fully acknowledge I am biased) I would say the quality of player we have is good, and City is an attractive place to play given the opportunities the young lads are getting these days. They’re not going to get recruitment 100% right but I do think it’s improved in recent years and we’re not missing out on local talent to the likes of Southampton and the midlands teams as much as we were in the recent past.

The experience and coaching is generally good… all I would say is that boys are treated like young professionals very early on and it would be nice to see them be allowed to have a bit more fun at times… it’s a huge time commitment it’s all very serious. I guess that’s inevitable but they’re kids at the end of the day and seeing them have a laugh and enjoy it more often wouldn’t do any harm imo. 

[Lrrr]

13 minutes ago, Countryfile said:

Very interesting post from Pete, obviously knows a lot about youth football.

I’ve already commented on the hype around the academy, and it’s doing no favours to those lads who are learning their trade.

We must stop using Scott and Semenyo as a yardstick, one a once in a generation player, the other a player bound for a top six club.

Both incidentally rejected by other clubs at a young age.

My understanding was that we have a number of local scouts so I am surprised that they aren’t more visible.

The question I would ask is, is it worth concentrating on recruiting older lads rather than 8,9,10 year olds?
 

The failure rate amongst that age group must be very high, so is the time and money spent of value?

Perhaps they just don't like wearing City branded clothing while out scouting...?

And I agree, a large part that is looked over is that even 5 years ago a lot of City's failed academy players would at best play in non league, now it seems to be every year that more and more are ending up in L1/L2, each of these will retain a sell on to City in future if they do well, so the more we churn out to this level over the next 5 years or so hopefully we could start to see a steady trickle of sell on fee income. Not to mention that its also good that we're helping young lads realise a career path of professional football, some may say 'who cares if its not City' but its still a good thing. 

[petehinton]

28 minutes ago, Lrrr said:

The HPC is plenty fit for purpose, the building is sectioned in first team and academy areas so you don't have crossover, not sure which side the womens team use but will be at times when the first team aren't using the same section. Every academy age group won't be inside, only 18's & 21's will be around day by day and then their pitches along with women and rest of academy (when light) will be based down on the old pitches, the top pitches are first team only barring the show pitch for matches. I won't comment on the 'saving the academy' stuff as I agree players flourished because of talent and opportunity, but take away say Leicester, Southampton etc who've spent plenty of time in the Prem and yes, our training facilities will be right up amongst the best in the league. 

Course, there’ll be some others in there (Cardiff, Norwich) etc too, but my point is it’s great and a clear upgrade on what we had - but to hear the club and others call it “state of the art” “second to none” and other things along those lines, are way way OTT. 

[formerly known as ivan]

5 hours ago, GrahamC said:

Secondly due to squad size loads of them, Yeboah & Knight-Lebel in particular are already with the first team.

Is this not part of the issue though? They are not championship ready but have to be involved.

Yeboah is a prospect but clearly not ready to championship football and ideally would suit a lower league loan, but we can’t afford him that.

Yes he has energy and has shown glimpses, hence me saying he is a prospect, but he looks out of his depth when he plays ability wise.

[Lrrr]

4 minutes ago, formerly known as ivan said:

Is this not part of the issue though? They are not championship ready but have to be involved.

Yeboah is a prospect but clearly not ready to championship football and ideally would suit a lower league loan, but we can’t afford him that.

Yes he has energy and has shown glimpses, hence me saying he is a prospect, but he looks out of his depth when he plays ability wise.

He's 17 so we wouldn't be sending him out on loan anywhere yet anyway until he's 18, a non league loan like Bath would have been the max. 

[TV Tom]

11 minutes ago, Lrrr said:

He's 17 so we wouldn't be sending him out on loan anywhere yet anyway until he's 18, a non league loan like Bath would have been the max. 

Semenyo went along the same path didn't he ? Bath & Newport rings a bell

[Lrrr]

35 minutes ago, TV Tom said:

Semenyo went along the same path didn't he ? Bath & Newport rings a bell

A lot do, Sam Pearson is the youngest I remember at the highest level out on loan with Bath when he was still 17. 

[Cowshed]

12 hours ago, petehinton said:

I think there is a blend of genuine hype to believe, bigging up the academy to help with the narrative of not spending money on players, and we’ve just been so used for so many years producing one player who’s maybe good enough to have a stint in the first team then be sold a few years later that (we pretty much went from Skuse….huge gap….Bryan) now having a solid group at most ages is still a bit of a novelty. 
 

IMO the ones I’ve mentioned above are the ones I’m most excited about, and for anyone who was there Sunday will see what I mean about athletes. Meerholz is an absolute unit, 6ft 2, ball playing lefty and he’s just 17. 
 

The one thing I do roll my eyes at a bit, and I understand why they do it, is HPC this, HPC that. It’s a lovely building. Nice facilities. They are brilliant pitches. But you are cramming in first team, all academy ages, the womens side and all non playing staff into that building. Pearson made reference to it in his final days, which also probably went down like a bucket of sick seeing as it’s heaven on earth to the club, essentially saying if we were to grow as a club and operation which is ultimately the aim, it’s not really fit for purpose. So I don’t know what the expansion potentially is, or if it’s even possible?
 

Is it a damn sight better than first team being in failand in crap facilities and the academy being on the motorway? Without a doubt, but the narrative it’s best in class for the division, that it’s somehow saved the academy and it’s the reason that Semenyo, Scott etc flourished is baloney, imo. They flourished because they’re good enough and were blooded really, really well at the perfect time for their development. 
 

Category is another point I’ve seen raised. One thing I do agree with, within reason, and Tinnion covered this last year, is there’s no real point in becoming category 1 from the category 2 we are now. Running costs, quality of coaching (costs) become much higher, it doesn’t particularly protect us from a bigger club coming in and taking someone they really want to, just means the compensation is much higher & still a pittance for a PL club. We’d also be grouped into cat 1 league, so against Chelsea, Man City, United etc who take incredible pride (rightly) in winning it all at academy level, and rarely let their top players at those ages go out on loan in order to fulfill winning it all, so in short we’d get absolutely pumped most weeks. We also can’t be cat 1 with the facilities we have atm (see above HPC point!), so would need upgrading if we ever wanted to as we don’t have the right indoor areas (and I think 
 

My other gripe is recruitment and scouting. My fear (and there’s very recent proof of this), but the approach from the club seems to me to currently be “well we’re the best in the area, if they’re good enough we’ll hear about them” or they’ll fall on our lap with recommendations like antoine and Alex did. That’s not really how it works. A 15 year old lad from the area signed a 2 year YTS at Newcastle last month after a short trial, and after City (and others, tbf) weren’t interested because of his lack of academy experience up until being 15. Low and behold, we became interested after hearing Newcastle were.  There’s some top 21s at Southampton who are from Bristol and been overlooked, have made it into matchday squads there, and who I have no doubt would be in and around our first team this season. Maybe even starters honestly. 
 

A few on here know (and I don’t mind knowing) but i talent scout for North Somerset RTC & have done for a few years now, and being out and about most weekends over that period I have seen City staff (scouts) at games once (no typo). But have seen Villa & West Brom staff a fair few times. It’s a huge shame and also just something I don’t understand at all. The quality at all ages at Avon League/woodspring levels these days is extremely, extremely strong. 
 

A bit of a ramble, but it’s all the above - along with the nest egg, best squad ever comments - that make me feel even more passionately / protective over it (especially being involved in it from a youth etc perspective). In what strange universe we can harp on about all our success & have the club Pat themselves on the back each day about certain things (and also not promoting that you can watch the 18s and 21s for free entry and parking multiple times each month!!!), and yet we are left with having Joe James (who came through at North Somerset, even more extra points for being a Kewstoke lad) as our only fit RB across all senior age groups in the club is an absolute travesty to me.
 

The lad is a pretty mid-range u18 player, in the nicest way possible, hardly featured in the 21s yet we are meant to laud him being thrown in when he’s not ready, along with throwing Jamie KL on when we’re chasing the game as we’re so out on our feet, in a game that was then basically outed as being make or break for our manager of 2.5 years as a major success for the club??? How is that good for their development when JJ drops straight out the squad immediately afterwards.  Feels like some strange dystopia to me. 
 

Anyway, I massively digress, just a real passion and interest of mine.  A 10 minute wait for the bus well spent

Off at a tangent. Southampton are shutting their Bath academy. Its an area BCFC can move into.

[petehinton]

3 minutes ago, Cowshed said:

Off at a tangent. Southampton are shutting their Bath academy. Its an area BCFC can move into.

They’ve shut down a few centres yeah, because of relegation / the new owners being absolutely obsessed by data. It’ll grow to become one of the most ridiculous decisions they’ve ever made imo. They’ll never ever be able to reopen it, due to the circumstances in which they were able to have access granted to be there in the first place!

[Cowshed]

2 minutes ago, petehinton said:

They’ve shut down a few centres yeah, because of relegation / the new owners being absolutely obsessed by data. It’ll grow to become one of the most ridiculous decisions they’ve ever made imo. They’ll never ever be able to reopen it, due to the circumstances in which they were able to have access granted to be there in the first place!

I think Bristol City should be employing the staff Southampton let go. There are players who Ian Rossiter scouted and coached now at BCFC throughout levels, and Ian had joined Southampton. He should have been kept by City in the first place.

 

[petehinton]

10 hours ago, formerly known as ivan said:

Is this not part of the issue though? They are not championship ready but have to be involved.

Yeboah is a prospect but clearly not ready to championship football and ideally would suit a lower league loan, but we can’t afford him that.

Yes he has energy and has shown glimpses, hence me saying he is a prospect, but he looks out of his depth when he plays ability wise.

Totally. But as pearson/Tinnion have mentioned, loans aren’t for everyone. I’d imagine they see people like JKL, maybe even Eph, as gaining more by staying around the first team environment, training with the first team every week and have extra individual coaching, having minutes here & there etc as better than having to drop down into league two (probably) full time that suits them a bit less.
 

Not saying they’re the same ball park….but players like Foden are examples of where sometimes sticking around at a club full time and being coached as much as possible is better for them than minutes in a lesser league. 

 

I’m probably in a minority but I’d rather they both stick around, with Yeboah especially imo having better cameos than some have made out. Yes he’s erratic and is carnage, but his defensive work and tracking back was really impressive for someone of his age, and his raw pace couldn’t be dealt with especially on counters. Manning probably won’t trust him ahead of Mehmeti now, especially as he’s come off back to back losses, but I think Saints away in particular him coming on instead of Anis would’ve been better for us for that game in isolation. 

[petehinton]

1 minute ago, Cowshed said:

I think Bristol City should be employing the staff Southampton let go. There are players who Ian Rossiter scouted and coached now at BCFC throughout levels, and Ian had joined Southampton. He should have been kept by City in the first place.

 

They should have been hoovered up in some cases, agree, but don’t think anyone has. Ian was let go by Tinns when he became academy director I believe as part of his reshuffling. He did some work for NS over the summer, and another lad from saints is full time at NS now, Ian has a role at Man Utd I believe. 

[Gillies Downs Leeds]

5 minutes ago, petehinton said:

They should have been hoovered up in some cases, agree, but don’t think anyone has. Ian was let go by Tinns when he became academy director I believe as part of his reshuffling. He did some work for NS over the summer, and another lad from saints is full time at NS now, Ian has a role at Man Utd I believe. 

Yes Ian is now at Man Utd.

[Davefevs]

21 minutes ago, Cowshed said:

I think Bristol City should be employing the staff Southampton let go. There are players who Ian Rossiter scouted and coached now at BCFC throughout levels, and Ian had joined Southampton. He should have been kept by City in the first place.

 

Appeared to be some Twitter tension between Tins and Ian over Wes Burns at the weekend.

[Guest]

31 minutes ago, Gillies Downs Leeds said:

Yes Ian is now at Man Utd.

What role is he carrying out?

[2015]

19 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

Appeared to be some Twitter tension between Tins and Ian over Wes Burns at the weekend.

Sold for 300k, check the profit on that. Cost as much as a Tillson  

In seriousness, the way Tinman was bragging about that was seriously clutching at straws.

To me the feeling inside the club is its very pleased with itself. I really liked how NP used to call the HPC the 'Training Ground'.