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Campbell
Rose Belehouan C Howe Horton
Beestin Rowley Butterfield Jones
Gale D Howe
Academy?
All paperwork – little (less) football due to the EPPP. Too many classroom sessions these days… diversity, inclusion, LGBTQ, racism, online grooming etc.
Surely parents & schools should be delivering that sort of material?
Surely a football academy is there to teach / coach / deliver… er football!
Facilities – we ain’t got adequate facilities for the first team, let alone 9 academy teams.
Offices – until High Ridge was rebuilt, it operated out of two ex construction site port-a-cabins that weren’t fit for purpose.
Welfare facilities – no running hot or even cold water, no toilets, no rest/break area, inadequate heating & insulation in winter or cooling in summer.
Pitches – very poorly maintained, no irrigation during the warmer periods, so rock hard pre-season & end of season.
At one point one of the ‘venues’ was Whartons rat infested shed.
One set of kits were used for 4 consecutive years. Young un was in one of the teams that Paul Harsley took one season – he used to take the ‘knackered’ kits home for either his wife or mother to sew & patch back together.
There were Sunday league teams with better facilities & kits / equipment than us.
Everything was beg, borrow & (I can’t put the last word that normally accompanies the preceding two – as no nefarious activities ever took place) long term lend.
Coaches – inadequately qualified number of coaches in the Scunny area.
Cost – without EFL funding; you’d be charging ‘subs’, like a Sunday League team… not very professional.
I could go on – but won’t.
Don’t even think of an Academy – not whilst we are outside of the EFL.
And, being perfectly honest; managers don’t want young kids in their teams.
Managers are only as good as their last ten games and know that in (perhaps) the majority of cases… the sack is only a bad run away!
We only ever farmed the first & 2nd year ‘Pros’ out to non-league clubs… and usually released them at the end of their first contract.
The old apprenticeship was a 3 year deal. That was cut back to 2 years to fall in line with every other government apprenticeship.
Any apprentices who were ‘rewarded’ with a first year pro contact – were really only getting that third year… as their wages were part funded by the EFL.
Don’t bother with an Academy.
The focus has to be the first team, with no distractions.
The goal has to be to achieve promotion back to the EFL