"academy Is Heading For The Scrap Heap"

[Guest maccer1]

Today's Evening Post has an article by Simon Parkinson about Dave Fear raising an alarm about the future of the Academy. I've copied and pasted the article below from The Evening Post Website

It's an interesting article and the bit that caught my attention was SL's comment "At the end of the day, a youth policy is an important factor in that, whether you call it an Academy or something else." An Academy by any other name is not an Academy. I believe that a downgrading to a Centre of Excellence would be a massive retrograde step.

With the Supporters Trust looking to raise money in return for shares, do you believe it would be a good idea to campaign for the money to be put towards retaining an Academy?

MOVING THE GOALPOSTS?Bristol City's Youth Academy is heading for the scrapheap - that's the opinion of lifelong fan Dave Fear, who helped establish the ground-breaking scheme in the 1990s. In an exclusive interview with the Evening Post, City Academy governor Fear has revealed his concerns for the organisation's long- term future.

Fear contends that City directors Steve Lansdown and Keith Dawe plan to justify the closure of the Academy on financial grounds and replace it with a revamped scouting network and reduced youth coaching system.

But City chairman Lansdown today refuted suggestions that the club's Youth Academy is to be scrapped.

Rumours of the Academy's possible closure have spread since John Laycock resigned as a director of the League One club in the autumn.

But Lansdown insists there are no plans to shut the Academy and scoffs at those who question his commitment to youth.

He declared: "Closing the Academy is not on my agenda and I don't recall at any stage saying that it was. I'm a firm believer in a healthy youth policy and a supporter of the Academy."

Yet Lansdown believes the current structure to be unwieldy and makes no secret of his desire to run a tight ship financially.

City announced a pre-tax loss of £1.9 million for the previous financial year and the chairman perceives the Academy to be "expensive".

He said: "The Football Association put in place a very bureaucratic system and we've managed to chip away at that down the years. There is still room for improvement and the costs of running the Academy can be reduced further.

"That doesn't mean I'm seeking to scrap it, just make it cost-effective."

Speaking at the recent annual meeting of shareholders, Lansdown suggested the Academy was not providing the club with value for money.

He explained: "The Academy has to be judged in two main areas.

"Firstly, there is the matter of producing players and then selling them on. A look at the transfer fees we have received from other clubs in recent years suggests the Academy has done its job in that respect.

"The second area is providing players for the first team and, in that respect, we have been less successful.

"We had a crop of Academy products in the team that Danny Wilson built and yet we still failed to win promotion in 2004. Since then, we have produced very little. Players are coming through again now, but the proof of the pudding is in the eating and they still require time to prove themselves.

"I do believe in youth development, but the bottom line for any football club has to be results. Our league position says the Academy has not done its job in terms of bringing through players to help win us promotion."

In response to Fear's claims, Lansdown said: "I cannot afford to be sentimental about it. I have to look at the financial implications.

"It's easy for other people to be idealistic; I have to be realistic.

"I'm seeking progress and development and I expect people to perform. I'm not running a school, I'm running a football club.

"At the end of the day, a youth policy is an important factor in that, whether you call it an Academy or something else."

Getting rid of the academy will be the best thing the club would have done for years.

Its costly, the coaching seems dreadful, the players that come out of the academy are soft to say the least.

We got Andy Cole, Bob Taylor and Lita from premiership reserve teams and youth developments. There is no reason why going in that direction cannot continue.

[bh red]

Getting rid of the academy will be the best thing the club would have done for years.

Its costly, the coaching seems dreadful, the players that come out of the academy are soft to say the least.

We got Andy Cole, Bob Taylor and Lita from premiership reserve teams and youth developments. There is no reason why going in that direction cannot continue.

wow.........3 players in what 15 years? well worth it!

[GoneWest]

Getting rid of the academy will be the best thing the club would have done for years.

Its costly, the coaching seems dreadful, the players that come out of the academy are soft to say the least.

We got Andy Cole, Bob Taylor and Lita from premiership reserve teams and youth developments. There is no reason why going in that direction cannot continue.

Spot on matey. It's taken SL far too long to sort this Club out but at last he's getting to grip with the root causes of our decades of under achievement. Scrap the academy and get a decent scouting network sorted ... we need hungry fighters not softies who think they've made it already.

[Nibor]

Spot on matey. It's taken SL far too long to sort this Club out but at last he's getting to grip with the root causes of our decades of under achievement. Scrap the academy and get a decent scouting network sorted ... we need hungry fighters not softies who think they've made it already.

Hungry fighters like Steve Jones, Lee Peacock and Tony Dinning?

You are having a laugh.

A decent scouting network and an academy are not mutually exclusive, we waste far more money on transfers for far less return than we've ever spent on the academy.

Nibor

[numbeast]

[GoneWest]

Hungry fighters like Steve Jones, Lee Peacock and Tony Dinning?

You are having a laugh.

A decent scouting network and an academy are not mutually exclusive, we waste far more money on transfers for far less return than we've ever spent on the academy.

Nibor

Absolutely - naff signings as a consequence of a non-existent scouting network, non-existent vetting of medical and behavioural histories.

And our Academy has got us exactly where? Second bottom of the third division.

How many of the thirty odd clubs that have zoomed past us while we been busy nurturing our young talent have had Academies?

[Nibor]

Absolutely - naff signings as a consequence of a non-existent scouting network, non-existent vetting of medical and behavioural histories.

And our Academy has got us exactly where? Second bottom of the third division.

It's our naff signings that have got us here not the academy players. Like I said, scouts and an academy are not mutually exclusive - what on earth does our failure to scout properly have to do with the academy?

How many of the thirty odd clubs that have zoomed past us while we been busy nurturing our young talent have had Academies?

Of the 17 clubs which have been promoted from League one while we've been here the following have academies:

Preston

Millwall

Reading

Stoke

Cardiff

Crewe

Sheffield Wednesday

Some of the others are moving to academies in a hurry as well.

What's your point?

Nibor

[Will Rollason]

I expect they're covering some real news, like your chance to bet on the under 5's snail race in Lower Wello Wello

i want a piece of this as well...what are the odds like

[GoneWest]

Unfortunately, third division clubs have tight budgets. In money heaven..we wouldn't worry about how much we spent but reality is we spend on Academy or Scouting. SL has admitted our scouting network is a shambles. Why? Because he invested in the Academy instead of a scouting network in the false hope it would produce the goods so we wouldn't have to buy in. WRONG!!!

Have Crewe beeen promoted since we've been in the third? May be so. The point is the majority of Clubs promoted have not had Academies. No problem with having an Academy once we're in the Championship when we can afford it and once we've got our scouting/vetting sorted.

Let's get the priorities sorted before we go down to the basement and target our investments where they make a reasonable return.

[Nibor]

Unfortunately, third division clubs have tight budgets. In money heaven..we wouldn't worry about how much we spent but reality is we spend on Academy or Scouting. SL has admitted our scouting network is a shambles. Why? Because he invested in the Academy instead of a scouting network in the false hope it would produce the goods so we wouldn't have to buy in. WRONG!!!

Sorry but this is completely false. SL didn't spend on the academy INSTEAD of scouting, the scouting that was done has always been limited, I think the last real scout we employed was Whitehead and he left years ago. Employing some scouts around the UK is not expensive in terms of what we spend on players at all and the academy in NO WAY stops us doing so. The managers up until Johnson simply didn't see the need.

Have Crewe beeen promoted since we've been in the third? May be so. The point is the majority of Clubs promoted have not had Academies. No problem with having an Academy once we're in the Championship when we can afford it and once we've got our scouting/vetting sorted.

You seem to be under the illusion that you can set up an academy overnight, you can't. It takes years to get up and running and we've already done this, we're ahead of the game. The majority you talk about is slim to say the least and it's notable that the clubs with academies seem in the main to have done well in the division above in the seasons since their promotion.

Let's get the priorities sorted before we go down to the basement and target our investments where they make a reasonable return.

For 200k a year the academy provides a better return than any signing we have made in the last god knows how many years. Ex academy players brought in over £1.6m in transfer fees in the summer and Cotterill is worth at least that again. How much did our expensive and mostly useless transfer signings cost us in the last 8 years and bring in when we finally got rid of them?

Nibor

[Nibor]

If I was Dave Fear I'd be updating my CV after SL's response.

Nibor

[BCFC_Dan]

Unfortunately, third division clubs have tight budgets. In money heaven..we wouldn't worry about how much we spent but reality is we spend on Academy or Scouting. SL has admitted our scouting network is a shambles. Why? Because he invested in the Academy instead of a scouting network in the false hope it would produce the goods so we wouldn't have to buy in. WRONG!!!

Ridiculous. The Academy has had no more funding in the past few years than the transfer/wage budget, so why not divert money from that? Why do we buy a Marc Goodfellow for £100k when there's a Paul Parry available for £30k? A Lee Miller for £325k when there's a Dave Kitson for £100k?

If we had better scouting we could get better players in for less money and the Academy could continue. Plus Academy graduates would benefit from playing with better players (in terms of both skill and professionalism).

Have Crewe beeen promoted since we've been in the third? May be so. The point is the majority of Clubs promoted have not had Academies.

I thought I'd research this to see if it was the case, and yes it is the majority of promoted clubs that don't have academies, but I imagine it's closer than you thought - of 14 clubs promoted from this division in the past 5 years (Brighton were promoted twice), 8 have not had academies and 6 have. Notably, however, 3 of the non-academy clubs have since been relegated (and one promoted, I'll grant you), yet all of the clubs with academies have stayed up.

Clubs promoted in the past 5 years:

Millwall - Academy

Stoke - Academy

Reading - Academy

Sheff Wed - Academy

Crewe - Academy

Cardiff - Academy

Plymouth

Brighton

Wigan

Rotherham

QPR

Luton

Hull

Walsall

No problem with having an Academy once we're in the Championship when we can afford it and once we've got our scouting/vetting sorted.

Let's get the priorities sorted before we go down to the basement and target our investments where they make a reasonable return.

Great idea, but the Academy takes around 10 years development to properly function. Add that to the fact that the FA is not keen on non-Premiership clubs having them and I imagine that if we were to shut ours down now there would be no chance of us opening one ever again.

We do need to sort out the finances, but not by cutting off our only hope of self-sufficiency.

[bucksred]

This old chestnut again.

Living up here, i've a lot of local teams, who seem to go through patches.

Wycombe, and Watfart are bringing through young uns, where as Lu'on, and Oxfart aint. Results don't nessecarily show the effect.

As I understand it thew FA subsidise some part of said academy, and sponsorship another chunk, cant see the problem in the rest being picked up by City.

Citys porblem is twofold:

1. If there is a scouting network, it fails singularly to attract much quality, be it academy or grown players.

This needs significant overhaul to reflect the times. As in not signing pony like Matthews, Bridges, Peacock, Roberts, Docherty, Coles- this the baggage they carry. A decent scout might actually be aware of the defects in the players

2. coaching, likewise utterly woeful. Even Wayne rooney would struggle to make an impact here wi this lot. No youngster, no matter how much raw talent in the lad could grow significantly here with our current coaching staff. Likewise the first teamers, quite possibly why our players have decided to be underperformers an lash heads over the last few years.

If we bin the academy we'll be up kack street, minus both paddles... it really would be a massive retrograde step, and would show me that City is not ambitious for success.

Lets hope its not true.

[Thornbury Red]

If I was Dave Fear I'd be updating my CV after SL's response.

Nibor

Interesting that the Evil Post choose to run this story the day before Shooting Stars began..... :@

[Tunley Legend]

i cant believe your actually taking a "news item" by the evil post seriously.

since when have they done anything but seek to undermine the city at any opportunity and this half baked " story" is another pop.

See S.L 's reply and don't believe what a bunch of sag hacks tell you.

you reds!

You are right in one respect. The majority of the media in this area (I would actually say Geoff Twentystone excluded) have really enjoyed having a few swipes at us while we are on the floor. Every two-bob gas loving hack in the area has been round Ashton Gate like bees to a honeypot over the last couple of years. Lita fighting coppers - no charges ever brought. Coles getting on the front page for fighting coppers - how many years did he get?. Partridge, Orr and Brown getting on the front page - when do they appear in court?. Murray's wages being splashed on the front page weeks before a court spat that he actually WON. If you read the story there is one word which shines out like a beacon - RUMOUR. In other words, no real substantiation to it whatsoever. But that doesn't stop an amateur newspaper with some ambitious no-mark journalist flying in with both feet!!

With my cynical head on, I would put forward the ridiculous suggestion that the whole article is a huge publicity stunt devised by the Board and aided by David Fear to ensure that the Supporters Trust invest their money specifically in the Academy year on year thus relieving some of the clubs running costs.

[samj100]

Getting rid of the academy will be the best thing the club would have done for years.

Its costly, the coaching seems dreadful, the players that come out of the academy are soft to say the least.

Actually i thought the coaching was brilliant, i enjoyed the training sessions. I had a couple of encounters with john clayton and thought he was brilliant. If i am really honest i didn't think the quality was as high as i thought it might be. I've played against people playing sunday football that would have easily taken the place of a few players signed on for the academy.

Stick with the academy, you do get some excellent players down there don't get me wrong. But to say the coaching is poor is incorrect.

[Milo]

With my cynical head on, I would put forward the ridiculous suggestion that the whole article is a huge publicity stunt devised by the Board and aided by David Fear to ensure that the Supporters Trust invest their money specifically in the Academy year on year thus relieving some of the clubs running costs.

The Club will benefit from Supporters Trust money whether it is used for the Academy or anything else. Therefore the Board wouldn't really benefit by starting a rumour such as this for that aim. Dave Fear, on the other hand, has met with us and asked if we would invest specifically in the Academy. My personal views on this can be found on this thread on the Supporters Trust forum.

[Guest ashtonyate]

The system at City gave him the chance to bust a gut for four years for absolutely no reward because other players at the club (almost all of whom were transferred in) couldn't take things seriously enough to win promotion.

If you think Matt was a liability then you must have some ridiculously high standards because he's doing just fine in the Championship without us.

Bust a gut for four years he wants to work at a manual job for 5 1/2 days a week like most working class people do, It gave him a chance to earn a very good living also i stand by what i said he was a liability up until the last 18 months soon as he started to be worth a place as a right he swans of to Preston

and no i don't have high standards prehaps you have low ones.

[BCFC_Dan]

Bust a gut for four years he wants to work at a manual job for 5 1/2 days a week like most working class people do, It gave him a chance to earn a very good living also i stand by what i said he was a liability up until the last 18 months soon as he started to be worth a place as a right he swans of to Preston

and no i don't have high standards prehaps you have low ones.

I'm not comparing Matthew to a labourer, I'm comparing him to other footballers. He worked a hundred times harder than Peacock, Matthews and all those other wasters and his reward was nothing. That's why he left.

If you worked in a team and you knew all your hard work was being undone by the laziness of someone who is getting paid more than you, I think you'd be a little annoyed too.

And he was not a liability. He was never a liability and that's why he's doing better than the rest of the club now.

[Guest ashtonyate]

I'm not comparing Matthew to a labourer, I'm comparing him to other footballers. He worked a hundred times harder than Peacock, Matthews and all those other wasters and his reward was nothing. That's why he left.

If you worked in a team and you knew all your hard work was being undone by the laziness of someone who is getting paid more than you, I think you'd be a little annoyed too.

And he was not a liability. He was never a liability and that's why he's doing better than the rest of the club now.

up until the last 18 months before he moved he was ball watching, getting caught out of position,given the ball away alot and he was letting down the side thats why he got drop alot. Matthews was unfit most of the time and over weight which when you cant play you get and should never have been signed.

Peacock i felt always tryed but had little support upfront he was never a centre foward and needed a big man to lay off the ball.you may not have compaired him to a manual worker but to say a footballer bust a gut you are having a laugh they would not know how to cope in the real world.

In some ways the soft life in the academy does them no favores at all, if they seen what the real working world was like it might make them give a bit more effort.

[RedM]

I'm not comparing Matthew to a labourer, I'm comparing him to other footballers. He worked a hundred times harder than Peacock, Matthews and all those other wasters and his reward was nothing. That's why he left.

If you worked in a team and you knew all your hard work was being undone by the laziness of someone who is getting paid more than you, I think you'd be a little annoyed too.

And he was not a liability. He was never a liability and that's why he's doing better than the rest of the club now.

Couldn't agree with you more.

Peacock though was popular with the fans and players because he was a joker and one of the boys. that's alright if you want to have fun at work but some one has to do the 'work' and carry these players, Matty Hill was one of them.

Peacock was a bit of a showman, all tatoos and hairgel. He also had the Man City connection that was part of his pedigree, Matthews had Leeds. They also scored goals, strikers are always the most worshipped players at a club aren't they?

Compare them to Matty Hill, a good steady, no nonsense honest pro. Never a hint of out of hours problems. Gave his all for the cause. The kind of players regarded so highly by Johnson now maybe? Matty was always great with the kids, I've never seen a player thank them so sincerely for asking for an autograph from him!

If the Academy can produce more, and especially local talent, like him then I support it fully. Whether we can keep these players and progress upwards and onwards is down to the Club.

[Guest ashtonyate]

Its not all down to the club its down to the players agent and what are you saying to sign them on long high wage contracts we know where that leads too.

I think it was the signing of fee that made the differents with Hill. He was looking for a club in the summer but no one came for him thats why he signed for us in the end he was chasing the big pay off.I think you should change your glasses to plain ones from the rose tinted ones.

[zookeeper]

Its not all down to the club its down to the players agent and what are you saying to sign them on long high wage contracts we know where that leads too.

I think it was the signing of fee that made the differents with Hill. He was looking for a club in the summer but no one came for him thats why he signed for us in the end he was chasing the big pay off.I think you should change your glasses to plain ones from the rose tinted ones.

The normal response again ayteoyate. Get a new tune from the rose tinted glasses one!

The fact that people can differentiate between what the see as honest proffesionals and those that just play for their pay blatantly shows that they have no need for any glasses.

Matt Hill was a top player for this club who worked hard both off and on the pitch. I would say that he was an ambassador for our club and would have developed into a great role model for the young players coming through.

[RedM]

Its not all down to the club its down to the players agent and what are you saying to sign them on long high wage contracts we know where that leads too.

I think it was the signing of fee that made the differents with Hill. He was looking for a club in the summer but no one came for him thats why he signed for us in the end he was chasing the big pay off.I think you should change your glasses to plain ones from the rose tinted ones.

I meant more it was down to the club to provide not only security (money and contracts) but the chance for what every player ultimately wants, the chance to play at the highest level possible. Or it's what they should be trying to attain anyway.

Many have gone to try to better themselves at a higher level, ok some have returned and some are playing in this division or lower. Matty as I said before looked after himself and his career. £100,000 wan't much but at least it was something. We have let far greater talent leave for far less money.

As an aside I wish Agents weren't involved as they are. Murray has learnt from experience now.

[Guest ashtonyate]

The normal response again ayteoyate. Get a new tune from the rose tinted glasses one!

The fact that people can differentiate between what the see as honest proffesionals and those that just play for their pay blatantly shows that they have no need for any glasses.

Matt Hill was a top player for this club who worked hard both off and on the pitch. I would say that he was an ambassador for our club and would have developed into a great role model for the young players coming through.

Well yes he did set an examply look after number1, as a roll model I hope all the new players coming through the academy do not follow him and leave before they have paid back the clubs investment in them??