cliftonphil Posted December 18, 2014 Share Posted December 18, 2014 Just a thought. On another thread Albino Rover happens to refer to Arbroath's Academy. Just wondering what clubs actually do have youth systems in place ? Rovers have nothing of this nature. No youth, no community, no U17s or U19s. No reserve or U20 team. Think QP certainly do... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lichtie78 Posted December 18, 2014 Share Posted December 18, 2014 We scrapped ours at the end of last season. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Albino Rover Posted December 18, 2014 Share Posted December 18, 2014 Sadly Rovers are one of the clubs that just can't afford it- and when we tried, it yielded no talent and put the club's financial situation in grave danger. Luckily some of the clubs which have very good youth systems like to release many of their graduated on free transfers, so rather than looking after a tree of our own we can pick the odd shiny apple that others chuck away by accident. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cliftonphil Posted December 18, 2014 Author Share Posted December 18, 2014 Guess it only takes a couple of gems to be unearthed to make it viable but I do agree that for many clubs its a bit of a vanity exercise Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JasonElgin Posted December 18, 2014 Share Posted December 18, 2014 Elgin have a few youth teams that have produced a few who play for the first team. Brian Cameron, Cieran McLean, Darryl McHardy with a few others on the bench every week. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1320Lichtie Posted December 18, 2014 Share Posted December 18, 2014 We used to have a full on right the way through the levels system but it got scrapped because of some SFA initiative or something, there were some good players there but they'll all end up junior at best. Best we've produced are Swankie and Andy Webster. Never see them again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hampden Diehard Posted December 19, 2014 Share Posted December 19, 2014 We've got a terrific set-up and we compete well against the best. The new SFA youth arrangements are having a detrimental effect, though, on clubs like us and Arbroath that aren't full time. The grants available are being cut substantially and we can't play in the same division against the full time pro sides (even though we're better than half of them). Absolute nonsense. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
athletic 1 Posted December 19, 2014 Share Posted December 19, 2014 Everything's available at Galabank from community soccer schools for the really young ones, then under 13's, 14's, 15's, 17's and 20's Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cmontheloknow Posted December 19, 2014 Share Posted December 19, 2014 The problem is the higher you go on the football ladder, the tougher it is to produce players good enough for the first team. Invariably you're producing players for other teams at a lower level. Ok there are exceptions but the Queen's Park one is a rarity. Even then, of the 24+ players who were in the Spiders' u19s 5 years ago, only two remain on their books by my reckoning (Coll and Gibson) and only a further two play at a higher level (Ross Barbour and Sean Kelly). The rest are either lost to the game or playing Junior (mainly) or Amateur (a few). A few 'for examples': Kevin Green (Arthurlie), Grant Hay (Maryhill), Owen Ronald (Cumnock), Alan Urquhart (Rob Roy). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
QPSAFalkirkFirm Posted December 19, 2014 Share Posted December 19, 2014 Fair shout Lok but as I posted the other day it can work the other way too. Reportedly QP will trouser about £300k from the on-sale of Andy Robertson. There are four others sold to Premier teams in the last 18 months and if they all moved on in similar teams that would be a massive boost for the club. The whole thing kicked off about ten years ago when clubs realised buying foreigners wasn't sustainable. Unfortunately, many have lost their nerve on it as the returns didn't justify the investment. One of the early pioneers and most respected of set-ups was Ross County but they only have a couple of local lads in their team. Last January's window they brought in 3 east Europeans which made a mockery of their efforts of the last decade. Falkirk and Hamilton are the only two I would say have kept to their principles and used the system to build a team rather than sell on. And QP as well, obviously. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gogs Grog Posted December 19, 2014 Share Posted December 19, 2014 We have the youth system in place and it's one of the areas that personally I'm happy seeing I think the club are forward looking. The only two of note that have come through recently that have moved up the divisions are Aaron Taylor-Sinclair as he is now known, playing at Wigan and Martin Boyle at Dundee. Although we probably got them at a later stage of their development to be fair. I think a lot of the youth teams aren't actually the football club but a link up with a community trust or some such thing based at Links Park. I'm sure someone else can put me right. We have 2 ex youth players on the first teams books this year that are yet to get a game and I think they maybe out on loan at local juniors. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Albino Rover Posted December 19, 2014 Share Posted December 19, 2014 Do East Fife or Berwick have kids' teams? At a glance I just noticed that there seems to be a slight connection between youth academies and 4G pitches. (Do QP youths play at Lesser Hampden?) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
QPSAFalkirkFirm Posted December 19, 2014 Share Posted December 19, 2014 Do East Fife or Berwick have kids' teams? At a glance I just noticed that there seems to be a slight connection between youth academies and 4G pitches. (Do QP youths play at Lesser Hampden?) Yep Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BerwickMad Posted December 19, 2014 Share Posted December 19, 2014 Do East Fife or Berwick have kids' teams? At a glance I just noticed that there seems to be a slight connection between youth academies and 4G pitches. (Do QP youths play at Lesser Hampden?)Not really. There's Berwick Rangers Juniors, or Berwick Juniors, but they're not officially connected to the club. They use club facilities on occasion and the supporters club recently funded some kit for their exchange trip to Holland, but that's about it I think. We had youth coaching in the summer at the club through Dean Gordon the ex Palace player, but it sounded like a bit of a failure for the older age groups and ended before it was supposed to I had heard. As far as I'm aware, all the Berwick Junior teams play in the north east on the English side. BTU coaches an u10 team, so he'd probably have a better idea than me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul_Rovers Posted December 19, 2014 Share Posted December 19, 2014 I disagree with our youth set up. It brought through plenty of good players who went on and played for the rovers. Yes they didn't go onto the achievements like Robertson from Queens Park but had decent careers in the lower leagues. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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