You’ll all not be surprised to hear the academy is apparently a bit of a shambles.
It’s actually a miracle anyone emerges through the current system.
Essentially they stopped recruiting back in March 2020 for a significant period of time – and the coaching set up became a revolving door.
There is a constant shortage of personnel and they are chronically short of players particularly in the younger age groups.
At various points this season for example, because of a shortage of players, year groups have had to be combined – so you have a ridiculous situation where say year 8 and 9 players are being made to play together in competitive academy matches making it close to impossible to judge players properly against their peers – both team mates and opponents.
Players are now also approached at grass root clubs en masse.
I know of one club in the Hull Boys League where they tried to take 4 of their players in one go whilst the season was ongoing – not because there was any real expectation of them being of potential professional standard you understand, but just to get bodies in the building.
Because their reputation precedes them, to my knowledge not one of those 4 have yet elected to go.
I’m also aware of a couple of players this season (bearing in mind these lads are 12 and 13 and still chasing the dream) who were so disillusioned at the set up they decided to go back to grass root clubs – as in, they left a professional clubs academy without being released!
The stories go on and on.
Safe to say, the current set up seems to accurately mirror other areas of the clubs performance.
I suspect they’ll stagger on for another season or so but then the funding will totally dry up and they’ll end up folding it up.
