The Bcfc Academy....

[purple_monkey_dishwasher]

Now Monkey I have showed you were my figures came from now show were yours are coming from also you can just put Lita money for this year its got to go against all the years he was here and all the players who have not made.

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But your source doesn't back up your claim! It disproves it! You said 675K, Steve Lansdown says less.

That combined with the donations from City2000 (see all their literature if you don't believe me), sponsorship and fundraising (mentioned by Steve Lansdown in your quote, also from the likes of the Supporters Club), means it costs even less.

I never even specifically mentioned Lita's transfer fee but regardless of how you view it, it's going to reduce the cost one way or another which was already less than you claimed!

[Nibor]

I find it funny how someone who avoids answering any somewhat difficult question by going aimlessly off on a tangent is getting so fussy about people answering him.

The academy costs significantly less than the £675k you quoted Ashton, your own figures show that expecially when you take into account the revenues it brings in.

In the last year it's generated £1.5+ in transfer fees. If you spread that over the ENTIRE time we've had the academy that's £200k a year off.

There are 6 or 7 players in the first team squad from the academy despite us having sold a number in the last year. There will be more next season.

A Centre of Excellence would not save us a significant amount of money on running costs at all and we'd lose out on signing the best young players since they'd go to clubs with academies.

Your question about if we didn't have one would we set one up is irrelevant, we do have one and we're keeping it.

This is like flogging a horse that died some time before christ was born.

Nibor

[purple_monkey_dishwasher]

The academy costs significantly less than the £675k you quoted Ashton, your own figures show that

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Thank god somebody else can see that. I thought I must be going mad. Who on earth "proves" theories by providing contradictory evidence?

I'm sure to be accused of "nitpicking" now. Ho hum.

[Mr Mosquito]

a) I respect you for this and think the forum needs more people with independence of judgement.  I certainly enjoy my debates with people like yourself who possess some individuality of thought.

b) Yes, we can just go out and buy players.  But where do these players come from?  from other clubs' academies.  The problem is not with the academy - it's with football. 

Our academy produces players like Lita - this is a success.  That Lita would rather go somewhere else to earn a higher wage probably means that we've been too successful in producing talent.  The real problem is that players with ambition will always be attracted by higher salaries and, let's face it, whatever level BCFC are playing at there will always be clubs above us to tempt promising talent away.

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Thanks for that even if I should accept rather than except - I didn't have the benefit of a Clifton College BCFC academy education

This thread is certainly throwing up some interesting aspects about the true nature of the BCFC academy. E.g. Academy players educated at the exclusive Clifton College??!! I want to see players leave the academy with cultured feet not cultured expectations that will enevitably lead them to leave BCFC. Also the real cost of the academy being far higher than RedUn and Co would like us to believe - this club does run at a loss so can BCFC really afford an academy?

The fact remains that 7 good fully trained players were brought to BCFC in the close season for less than £200,000 when the academy costs, at the very least, £400,000 per annum. Market conditions have changed and very good players can now be picked up for free on Bosman rulings.

I realise there are many benefits to having an academy like increased media exposure and the possibility of producing a real gem but the costs far outweigh the benefits of the academy in my opinion. If the academy started producing players that can 'hit the ground running' in this English Div 3 I would think the academy a good idea, alas what we've had are players that are far from the finished article so far. When they do come good after making costly mistakes losing us points they leave - anyone remember Matty Hill flapping his arms and giving away free kicks and penalties?

[Nibor]

Plenty of our signings in the time we've had the academy have been horrible value for money. I could make you a list but you don't really need me to prove this do you? Jones? Matthews? Peacock? Need I go on?

Clifton College? Yeah quite possibly a mistake but one that was rectified and therefore irrelevant.

Anyone else remember Matt Hill playing over 200 games for us and being one of our best defenders during that time? We've had plenty of graduates that have hit the ground running in this league, you saw several of them on Saturday. What we haven't had before is quality players brought in around them, we do now.

Players that came in cost less than £200k? I seriously doubt it once you take into account all the signing on fees etc. They'll also be on vastly more money than academy grads.

Nibor

[Mr Mosquito]

Frankly, I have no idea why I continue to bite at these barking Academy threads but I suspect it is because I worry more than two people may start believing them

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ashtonyate and I maybe diametrically opposed to you, RedUn and Nibor and Co but the issue of the academy needs to be debated for everyones benefit. A lot of money, time and effort has gone into that academy over the last 6 years with no benefit to our league divisional status. Had we gone up as Champions due to the footballing prowess of the BCFC academy players then yes - I'd be all for it !!!!! - but the fact remains we're still in poxy olde Div 3 !!!!

[Nibor]

ashtonyate and I maybe diametrically opposed to you, RedUn and Nibor and Co but the issue of the academy needs to be debated for everyones benefit. A lot of money, time and effort has gone into that academy over the last 6 years with no benefit to our league divisional status. Had we gone up as Champions due to the footballing prowess of the BCFC academy players then yes - I'd be all for it !!!!! - but the fact remains we're still in poxy olde Div 3 !!!! 

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Why does the small proportion of our annual expenditure that we now spend on the academy come under such intense criticism because the WHOLE CLUB has failed to be promoted?

Even if we accept that the academy costs £500k a year to run (which I doubt very much) that will still be very roughly 10% of our annual expenditure. If you think that proportionally tiny investment is accountable for singlehandedly delivering promotion or failing to then isn't the academy alot more important than you're making out?

Your reasons for blaming lack of promotion on the academy are extremely weak.

Nibor

[Mr Mosquito]

Why does the small proportion of our annual expenditure that we now spend on the academy come under such intense criticism because the WHOLE CLUB has failed to be promoted?

Even if we accept that the academy costs £500k a year to run (which I doubt very much) that will still be very roughly 10% of our annual expenditure.  If you think that proportionally tiny investment is accountable for singlehandedly delivering promotion or failing to then isn't the academy alot more important than you're making out?

Your reasons for blaming lack of promotion on the academy are extremely weak.

Nibor

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10% is a significant proportion of expenditure for any business. The academy players have often made up well over 10% and sometimes over half the team over seasons past and they've failed to deliver promotion. Too many hopes are attached to that academy and the players it produces at the expense of effort that could be put into scouting for players and in the coaching of the first team players and the management team we currently have.

[reddevil]

Although I appreciate the need for the debate about the academy the suggestion that it should be ended because we are in the 3rd tier makes no sense. There is some sense in the arguement, the collapse of the transfer market over the last few years has changed the game, I think that when City played Donny they were the only two teams in League One to actually pay any sort of fee over the summer

The reason we are here is fundamentally bad management over the last eight years since promotion in 98, for every Joe Anyinsah or Joe Burnell there is a Lee Matthews or a Tony Dinning. Without going over old ground, if David Moyes or Peter Taylor had been appointed instead of satan Pulis we would be in the Championship now, academy or no academy.

In many ways the true value of the academy has not been seen yet, with players entering the academy at 12, I think, we should only see the first true graduates in the next few years.

For my money £500k on the academy every year is a lot better bet than splashing the cash in the market given our recent record

[RedUn]

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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I see nobody* has attempted to provide an answer to this one yet, except I have read the opinion that recruiting seven players this season only cost 200k! - anyone else believe the additional outlay on the items in bold above were nil or was the poster having a laugh?

* Funny that, because I've answered their question.

[Nibor]

10% is a significant proportion of expenditure for any business. The academy players have often made up well over 10% and sometimes over half the team over seasons past

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I'm glad you've finally realised just how cost effective the academy actually is.

and they've failed to deliver promotion. Too many hopes are attached to that academy and the players it produces at the expense of effort that could be put into scouting for players and in the coaching of the first team players and the management team we currently have.

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Ah yes, I see. The 8 or so academy players in a professional squad of near 30 are entirely responsible for winning promotion. It had nothing to do with the 20 or so experienced and vastly more expensive pros who in some cases cost more to sign than the cost of running the ENTIRE ACADEMY for one year. Riiiiiight.

Where management has failed, that's because they're all too busy concentrating on the academy (as demonstrated by Wilson's enthusiastic development of our young players ?! )

Where we've signed expensive wasters or injury prone crocks who underperform and over earn that's because the academy is eating up the scouting network (which clearly worked fantastic before we had an academy right?! )

Nibor

[Mr Mosquito]

I'm glad you've finally realised just how cost effective the academy actually is.

Ah yes, I see.  The 8 or so academy players in a professional squad of near 30 are entirely responsible for winning promotion.  It had nothing to do with the 20 or so experienced and vastly more expensive pros who in some cases cost more to sign than the cost of running the ENTIRE ACADEMY for one year.  Riiiiiight.

Where management has failed, that's because they're all too busy concentrating on the academy (as demonstrated by Wilson's enthusiastic development of our young players ?! )

Where we've signed expensive wasters or injury prone crocks who underperform and over earn that's because the academy is eating up the scouting network  (which clearly worked fantastic before we had an academy right?!  )

Nibor

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Don't be so factious

I remember when Terry Cooper and Co did a marvellous job bringing in and developing young players - some of whom now even manage at the top level. Terry Cooper did that job with very little money to spend. Danny Wilson was completely the wrong manager to have with such an expensive academy to be overseen. Danny Wilson's family lived in Chesterfield and that's where his heart was - he had little time for the first team let alone an academy.

Peter Taylor could of got better results out of our academy, alas he wasn't to be our manager. Time's moved on and there is little need for an expensive academy now that there are good reliable players out there available on Bosman rulings. The market for footballers has changed - we don't need to expensively cultivate players via an academy when they're out there for next to nothing fully trained and ready to play.

[Nibor]

Don't be so factious   

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OK. I'll be facetious though

I remember when Terry Cooper and Co did a marvellous job bringing in and developing young players - some of whom now even manage at the top level. Terry Cooper did that job with very little money to spend. Danny Wilson was completely the wrong manager to have with such an expensive academy to be overseen. Danny Wilson's family lived in Chesterfield and that's where his heart was - he had little time for the first team let alone an academy.

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Cooper was really before my time, the only young player that made it from that era I saw play was Biffo. I'm not disagreeing though.

The game however has changed significantly since then. Back then there were little to no regulations over youth development from the FA, there was also alot less competition between clubs for the signature of promising youngsters (ie under 16s). Would Chelsea have bought Scott Sinclair in 1983? They wouldn't have even known about him.

Agree totally on Wilson.

Peter Taylor could of got better results out of our academy, alas he wasn't to be our manager. Time's moved on and there is little need for an expensive academy now that there are good reliable players out there available on Bosman rulings. The market for footballers has changed - we don't need to expensively cultivate players via an academy when they're out there for next to nothing fully trained and ready to play.

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I'd have loved Peter Taylor to have been our manager ahead of Pulis, had that happened I firmly believe we'd be hoping for a playoff spot to get into the Prem this year.

The bosman argument is probably the strongest one against an academy. I agree we could possibly save some money by doing this and downgrading to a CoE. I believe (and I'm not positive I'll admit) that a CoE is mandatory. A CoE basically has 4 or 5 less staff, lower maximums on the number of players you can have, and does not guarantee a similar standard of training facilities or have a structured match programme.

However that has an opportunity cost. It pretty much guarantees that any youngster good enough to be wanted by a club that has an academy will not sign for us. It means the young players will be playing against a lower standard of opposition with little structure to their seasons, and that they'll be getting alot less support off the field - which can make a big difference to how they develop as pros.

In my view it's also pretty short sighted, a couple of years like the Pulis ones and we could implode like that Gas have. When the difference between the two is as financially small as I think it is, I don't see the point in scrapping it.

Nibor

[Mr Mosquito]

Nibor, factious not facetious - there is a difference

May I draw your attention to the best article I've ever read on Herbert Chapman - a man who really knew how to manage a football club and well worth reading. Chapman bought in the best players he could afford and wasted little time on cultivating hopefuls, please click on the link below for a great summary of the great man.......

http://www.mightyleeds.co.uk/managers/chapman1.htm

[Milo]

May I draw your attention to the best article I've ever read on Herbert Chapman - a man who really knew how to manage a football club and well worth reading. Chapman bought in the best players he could afford and wasted little time on cultivating hopefuls, please click on the link below for a great summary of the great man.......

http://www.mightyleeds.co.uk/managers/chapman1.htm

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Nice link. Bringing the history of great football managers forward 40 years from Herbert Chapman, I thought you might be interested in this article about how a 'big club with potential, but underachievers and not really supported or renowned outside of their own city' became arguably the biggest Club in the world:

Matt Busby creates a 'large youth policy' and builds a team of bright exciting young players

[Guest ashtonyate]

Nice link. Bringing the history of great football managers forward 40 years from Herbert Chapman, I thought you might be interested in this article about how a 'big club with potential, but underachievers and not really supported or renowned outside of their own city' became arguably the biggest Club in the world:

Matt Busby creates a 'large youth policy' and builds a team of bright exciting young players

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Also without a reserve side the only place a ex academy player can learn their skill is in the first team and 2 young players are ok on the fring of first team football but thats it.

Prem side take young academy players on looking for that one Michael Owen but third div players are 10 a penny and along with exit academy players there are more than enough to keep us going.

[Mr Mosquito]

Nice link. Bringing the history of great football managers forward 40 years from Herbert Chapman, I thought you might be interested in this article about how a 'big club with potential, but underachievers and not really supported or renowned outside of their own city' became arguably the biggest Club in the world:

Matt Busby creates a 'large youth policy' and builds a team of bright exciting young players

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Another good link to a great manager's achievements.

"In 1947 a large youth policy was organised and the scouting system was expanded and reorganised."

......a youth policy not an academy was organised by Matt Busby - there is/was a difference and the raw youth football talent in and around Manchester is light years better than in Bristol and its surrounds. As for the expanding and re-organisation of our scouting system, Busby's ideas are appropriate to us and could be applied to our own scouting system.

[Mr Mosquito]

Prem side take young academy players on looking for that one Michael Owen but third div players are 10 a penny and along with exit academy players there are more than enough to keep us going.

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Exactly, when 3rd Div standard player's are 10 a penny what's the point in running an expensive academy to produce players of the same standard? Most of BCFC's expensively groomed ex-academy players have turned into journeymen anyway with minimal loyalty to this club.

[Nibor]

10/10 for rhetoric, 0/10 for substantive argument I'm afraid RG. Perhaps you should work for the Government? .

Great manager though he was, Chapman's approach 80 years ago is completely irrelevant to the game today. Ashtonyate again ignores all the other arguments to launch off on yet another tangent.

Players capable of getting us into the Championship aren't 10 a penny, does Dave Cotterill look like you can find him on any Downs league pitch? If they were 10 a penny do you think we'd have such a massive wage bill?

Our academy players aren't that expensive, certainly cheaper than the likes of the shocking signings we've made in the last 6 years. Work it out, lets see some maths. Take what you think the academy's cost us since creation (minus fees received for players who've left) and show it against the number of games ex academy players have played in the first XI. Do the same for our transfer signings and their signing on fees in the same period. Which is better value?

A number of ex academy players have left us and are now playing at a higher level, and had the worthless journeymen we've paid even more money for actually performed alongside them they'd still be here and we'd be in the Championship. Loyalty is irrelevant to the academy, since signed players aren't any more loyal or less likely to leave.

Rovers get their players for free and have a terrible youth system, and you want us to follow their lead? To where? Oblivion?

Nibor

[Mr Mosquito]

10/10 for rhetoric, 0/10 for substantive argument I'm afraid RG.  Perhaps you should work for the Government? . 

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Nibor, have you read all of the second page on Herbert Chapman? Especially the following and especially the bit highlighted in red......

"Herbert Chapman's team was loved by its own but cordially hated by just about everyone else. Arsenal were invincible, grandly untouchable and, always, the team to beat. Their success was even resented in other board-rooms where complacency and convention ruled; but this was just what the game needed. Envy became a stimulant. Arsenal's professionalism was studied and copied. The English game had a Highbury complex - and understandably so.

Arsenal were League Champions five times (1931, 1933-4-5 and 1938), runners-up in 1932 and third in 1937. They won the FA Cup in 1930 and 1936 and were beaten finalists in 1932. The first 38 championships had belonged to the north and midlands but when, at last, the monopoly was broken, Arsenal did the job properly.

There was no television then to flatter and project but Arsenal's players were household names. Alex James and David Jack, of course; Joe Hulme and Cliff 'Boy' Bastin, thunder and lightning on the wings; Herbie Roberts, the shy, red-headed giant who became Arsenal's principal stopper; and impeccable full-backs such as Tom Parker, George Male and Eddie Hapgood.

Some cost a lot of money, others were conjured out of minor football, but all became essential components of a side which was horribly mean in defence and cruel in counter-attack.

Arsenal's football was sometimes described as 'smash and grab' and often they were called 'Lucky Arsenal', but Chapman was pointing the way to the future. His feeling for things to come was remarkable."

[Nibor]

Nibor, have you read all of the second page on Herbert Chapman? Especially the following and especially the bit highlighted in red......

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Yep I read it. What relevance does it have precisely to whether BCFC should close their academy in 2005?

That's like arguing that we should close Bristol Airport because the SS Great Britain was good enough for Brunel.

Nibor

[Mr Mosquito]

Yep I read it.  What relevance does it have precisely to whether BCFC should close their academy in 2005?

That's like arguing that we should close Bristol Airport because the SS Great Britain was good enough for Brunel.

Nibor

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Conjuring players from minor football is an option that this club has neglected over the years and with a better and more extensive scouting system we might just find a few gems from the local leagues. Keep the academy going if you must but not at the expense of all the other options for finding the necessary talent to take us forward and upward.

[Nibor]

Conjuring players from minor football is an option that this club has neglected over the years and with a better and more extensive scouting system we might just find a few gems from the local leagues. Keep the academy going if you must but not at the expense of all the other options for finding the necessary talent to take us forward and upward.

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I'd be all in favour of signing any players from local non leagues that can make it at league level. I don't for a minute believe that the academy stops us doing this though.

The last one we got from non-leagues was Mark Shail I believe? He was great in his first season. I must admit I don't know of any local non-league players who are good enough to make it, I do know of quite a few that were actually cut from the academy at earlier ages after we'd already tried them out though so I guess you could argue we're already doing this?

Nibor

[GoneWest]

Not a sacred cow more of an albatross.

If a small fraction of the money had be spent on a quality manager, decent scouts, coaches and concentrating on capturing the cream of conference, league 1 and 2 players we'd be challanging for the Championship.

The 20 or so clubs that have zoomed past us, over recent years while we've stagnated prove the point. No need to get bogged down in the financial arguments chaps.

[Mr Mosquito]

Not a sacred cow more of an albatross.

If a small fraction of the money had be spent on a quality manager, decent scouts, coaches and concentrating on capturing the cream of conference, league 1 and 2 players we'd be challanging for the Championship.

The 20 or so clubs that have zoomed past us, over recent years while we've stagnated prove the point. No need to get bogged down in the financial arguments chaps.

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I'm pretty sure there's a good Monty Python sketch about an albatross. Sailors lost at sea would exclaim "seagulls!!!" knowing that land was near. We're lost at sea in this poxy division and we exclaim "albatross!!!" excitedly - even though its a bird that can stay far out at sea for months/years on end That should be the symbol for our academy - an albatross - we're silly enough to think that the albatross will guide us to the promised land i.e. the Championship

[semblar]

The last one we got from non-leagues was Mark Shail I believe? 

Nibor

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There's a more recent one

Steve Phillips joined us from Paulton Rovers

Dan

[Nibor]

Not a sacred cow more of an albatross.

If a small fraction of the money had be spent on a quality manager, decent scouts, coaches and concentrating on capturing the cream of conference, league 1 and 2 players we'd be challanging for the Championship.

The 20 or so clubs that have zoomed past us, over recent years while we've stagnated prove the point. No need to get bogged down in the financial arguments chaps.

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Bollards, we've spent far more money on managers, players etc than we have on the academy. The academy hasn't prevented us pissing away millions on the likes of Steve Jones and Lee Peacock.

Nibor

[GoneWest]

Note the reference to decent scouts. Up until this summer, I wouldn't disagree that the standard of signings has, frankly, been abysmal.

I suspect those 20 odd Clubs who started way behind us but are now decent Championship outfits - the Plymouth's, Cardiff's, Reading's, Hull, QPR and of course let's not forget Wigan - have delivered a minmum of 1 in 2 successful signings our rate must be around 1 in 10, if that.

It was really great spending 2 hours driving home down the M5 on Saturday with 4,500 joyous Plymouth supporters - gave me time to reflect once again on why we're perennial bottlers.

Maybe this year - if there's a God!

[Guest ashtonyate]

don't talk about seagulls after Cardiff, Poster keep talking about bad signings but thats down to the manager.I think we were all at fault in not giving Wilson the sack long before he got it, for some of his signings buying Miller for 325k and buying Murray back that why its so important to get the right man for the job. If you get the right man like at Yeovil you will not need an academy at this level.

[bucksred]

I cant BELEIVE this arguement:

Players like: Lita, Cotterill, Skuse, Woodman, Golbourne.

as opposed to "successes" like Jones, Peacock, Mortimer, Roberts, et al...

Its been a very long time since city got a player cheaply, all our older stars appear to be freebies (Bridges/Stewart) so we HAVE to go this route, which WILL become vital when (if) we ever get into the Championship, as we wont be able to afford decent players to start with

And I thought people wanted the team full of Bristolians rather than "overpaid mercenaries"

In football you have to speculate to accumulate, and my guess would be in transfers alone we must have recovered a significant amount of that laid out...don't forget those superstars Coles and Docherty, Hill, Lita have all been sold for good sums in todays market...........

Un forkin beleivable!!...and yes I'm a member of City 2000 as well