Torquay United Fans Forum

Steve (Exile) Don't know Liam Prynn or when he joined, do know he was with the academy for some time and wasn't a late developer, as it stands at the moment, and no fault of the club he didn't take the move and so didn't bring in the £50k , it must be remembered there is no guarantee that another club will come in for him, or that he will go on to get a 1st year pro contract with us, I hope so for the lad, big decision to turn down Villa, but never the less a good point, there may well be a few more Liam Prynn's at the academy and the next may well take a move and bring in much needed cash for the club.

Rob, yep agree, the academy, development centres which the club does have, although not funded by the club, and the 'in the community' programme are fantastic projects, the club is doing the right thing by backing the youth set up and I am certainly not knocking them for it.

I am not suggesting the club take immediate drastic action , in my opinion and those at the club may disagree, the percentage of players graduating from the academy into the youth team and then on to gaining a 1st pro contract is far to low, it should be higher and over the next few seasons needs to be higher.

I am suggesting that if the percentage doesn't improve over the next few seasons the club might want to rethink things w.r.t the youth set up, and posing the question should they rethink the youth set if things don't improve.

Thanks for that Dave. I have no idea, but shouldn't have thought the Club is putting huge amounts over and above the amount we get from the FL. I could be massively wrong, though. I recall a figure of £240k being reported when we were in the Conference (ie: that we wouldn't be getting) but that amount may have gone up or down with the new EPPP regime and payments linked to Academy statuses.

I'm very much of a mind that a youth system is very much a necessity and bare minimum a professional FL club should have. It's not a luxury and we should never have scrapped it before. It puts a Club at the heart of the community (be it either the Academy or Development Centre football) more than any one thing a Club can achieve with marketing. And obviously, as things become more established, you'd hope to have a few first teamers or those getting recognised higher up the food chain like Prynn.

On the local lads front, a few years ago, I'm guessing we would have been an obvious port of call for lads who weren't going to get another year at City or Argyle or had missed out there before. As the years progress, you'd like to think we can be first choice for many more than back then.

Dave, do you know whether Liam Prynn came through the whole set up or joined as a late developer? He would have brought £50k in had the move completed and hopefully could bring even more as he stays longer

Yes you're right Rob it does, I believe the youth dept has it's own sponsorship as well, this however only covers part of the total cost of running the youth set up, the club are paying in as well. The cost as I am sure you're aware of running a professional youth set up with 8 academy year groups plus youth team is mammoth. 3 full time staff, part time coach's, physiotherapy, hire of winter 3g training pitchs, equipment, travel, although the academy no longer go to Swansea, Bournemouth and Yeovil, so that's not so great these days , not sure if I've listed all costs there, parents only pay for their sons kit.

Of course if the club dropped it's U8-U14 age groups they would receive less money via the football league and sponsorship would be difficult to gain , however this current U16 squad I believe would have started as U10/11 academy re-start, next seasons at U9/10 , following right from U8/9, all I am saying is the academy must start producing, otherwise what's the point of having it, it just becomes an expensive exercise that looks good on paper.

Youth set up receives ring-fenced funding as part of our membership of the Fottball League.

Don't think there needs to be any reassurance from the club G/S , the club are clearly backing the youth set up and rightly so. However think it was Jeff who mentioned above, about getting players in our U10 squad now given 6 seasons of development and we should see a good crop of players coming through, well that's the point and the one thing that disappoints me.

I know a couple of these lads, and I know a few of them released had joined the academy right from it's rebirth, and had been with the club since U10/11, this is one of the first year groups that should have produced and it hasn't, been led to believe that 4 lads got through 3 of which were relatively new arrivals to the club, so we can't say they came through the academy.

What the club is spending the academy is likely to be equal to at least one 1st team player's wages , for me the club should monitor the academy, and the through put of players to the youth team remains low, then they perhaps should consider scraping it , I've seen many describe our youth set up as the jewel in the crown, is it?

Don't get me wrong I would never scrap the youth set up all together, I would consider just running a late developer U16 squad and the youth team, at the moment the only success seems to be coming from 17 year olds the club has signed via exit trials from London and Ireland, and that's my reason for suggesting the above.

This is a feeling I've had, that there may be something not quite right somewhere in our youth system; it may be a temporary blip, and perhaps next year we'll see more local lads beginning to come through. But it would be nice to have a little news and reassurance from the club.

Well that's interesting, had a number of message's this evening, it would appear that our U16 squad has been pretty much wiped out, with only 3 players being kept, none of them are local, from Devon or even the south west, I know this because one of these players released has asked to come training my side, possibly a second.

Compare that to the fact I have found out this evening that Exeter have kept at least 2 players who are local to this area, I have lost touch with the goings on at our academy over the last year or so, however it does make me wonder what the difference is between the two academy's and why Exeter seem again to be bringing through players mainly local to their area, and Devon wide, and we are not. The pioneer league is competitive in the county cup competitions, and Tiegn school, Kingstiengton made it through to the county schools cup final.

Good bit of info there Forever, thanks..

Trying to avoid posting out in public certain things, I know fully well how our academy and to be honest Exeter's run, I know some coach's past and present personally, and have met others from both academy's, my 8 year involvement in youth football, including with an advanced development centre of a professional club is not made up, enough now said.

The pioneer League is a F.A charter standard youth league, every club with it has to be charter standard, no club join with out it, therefore every listed manager pioneer league club manager must hold at least a level1 coaching certificate, the point to that is must pioneer league clubs are not turning over much more than 2 grand a year, depending on the size of the club in terms of how many age groups they have, so does any one honestly think our academy which runs on probably 10 times that plus isn't charter standard, in fact we have an, coaching in the community scheme, so would hazard guess we hold the F.A community standard, and our coaching staff must have at minimum level2 , most have UEFA B and above.

Do we have a proper academy, yes we do. When EPPP was first announced I asked Matt Williams then academy manager, who now works with the first team , he told me the club was going for a level 3 academy, I don't know if that was ever confirmed, although we are still handing our centre of excellence contracts I would say it is, under a level 4 academy I believe a club can't do that.

Never said there was any direct involvement from parents, what I said was a dad who had coached at youth level and men's level, and held a level2 coaching badge would fully understand what was being said to his son upon being released at his review. I am fully aware of how some parents will react when their sons are released, the pioneer league is full of them, I have 4 ex-Torquay and 1 ex-Exeter lad in my U16 squad. I have also been to Bristol City's academy and to be fair they are in some what of a different league to anything around here.

The point at the beginning was why have Exeter brought home grown players and we haven't. One pretty good reason is, in our 8-16 academy the turn over of player has been far to high, year on year we release far to many at all age groups, that may have changed now, and hopefully so, a player can't develop unless you're prepared to work with him.

Also again not knocking us, we haven't got a lot of money to spend, so we will tend to go where we believe the success will come from, that's why our youth team is full of lads from London, Ireland and Cyprus, and only 1-2 that have come through the academy, the return from the academy is far to low, for what we are spending on it.

My experience with our son at Bristol City (under Shaun Taylor at the time) not Torquay was very much as I said previously.
The clubs know that over 95% of the players will never reach the first team.....and anyone who dreams that our coaching team are doing anything but concentrating on 1 or 2 players in any one squad is kidding themselves.

As for parent involvement, there is none. You can watch training at a distance and you can get updates but it is a case of speak when spoken to and watch quietly from a distance, something I would add, I never had any issue with. After all they are a proffessional club.

Whilst the outcome for our lad was, as expected, being released, it was an experience he gained a massive amount from and has no regrets, but perhaps we were all more realistic than the vast majority of the other familiies.

One final point is Torquay's set up really an acaedmey?....seems everyone has one nowadays (even Tiverton) , but I am not sure if it has reached the charter required by the FA to really use that term ? Feel free to correct me if I am wrong.

What certainly is wrong is the groups of lad's no older than perhaps 10 or 11 turning up at tournaments in teams called "Academy" "Elite" etc. From my experience watching youth football, it just pushes them futher up the status tower and they fall much much harder when the 95% of them fail to reach the required standard

W ell that depends on what parents you speak to, and what involvement they have had in football coaching, think someone who is a level 2 football coach in his own right, with a proven track record in youth and mens coaching, would fully understand what was being said in a player review.

I think the fact some people are missing is you need to be good enough first.

Its no point having a side full of local lads if they are not good enough.

Being small is a physical disadvantage as is being slow. You get away with it if you have something to even the balance up or tip the scales in your favour IE Messi is small but by god is he good.

Also I would take what you hear from parents of boys who have been released with a pinch of salt as they can often be a bit upset with the descision and not really understand or explain properly the full reasons behind it.

Racism or just how things are? We're a white country, made up of 90% white people. That there are as many black or Asian or whatever as there are is remarkable given their relative rarity in society in general.

Have a look at the best leagues in the world. England, Spain, Portugal, Italy. All white(ish) countries. The J League or the Chinese Super League (full of 99.9% native Asian players) are both absolutely terrible.
A lot of the African nations have very good national sides and there are enough black Englishmen to account for the relative prevalence of those players.

Aside from in my local kebab shop, I can't remember the last time I saw a Turkish chap.

If 1/100 kids makes it in the pro game and 1/100 of those is Turkish or Greek or Chinese, then we're on a 1/10000 shot of one of them making it. There are, what, 1800 pros in England, so we're waiting for 5 complete cycles of the entire playing staff of the Football League before the maths tells us that we should have one of each.

I'm not saying that we're definitely not a nation of mental KKKists, but perhaps we're not?

Matt.

The reality of youth systems is that a proffessional club will only have realistic hopes for 1 or possibly 2 players making it each season.

The rest of the squad is very much there to make up the numbers, not good enough to serious threaten even the reserves, but good enough to allow the 1 or 2 in with half a chance to flourish by playing alongside them.

The harsh reality of youth football is that 90% of each squad is being "used" to make up the numbers...