Kian Noble

[Chris Black come back]

This lad is very highly regarded and on the bench for Man City tonight. Henry Winter reckons he is from Donny. Anyone know anything of him? Clearly wouldn’t ever have been in our youth set up but will have played some football locally.

[DonnyNoel]

Yeah I just saw that tweet too, have to admit I'd not heard of him but good to know there's some local talent at the top level although as for playing locally you never know - getting snapped up younger these days.

[Bessie Red]

This lad is very highly regarded and on the bench for Man City tonight. Henry Winter reckons he is from Donny. Anyone know anything of him? Clearly wouldn’t ever have been in our youth set up but will have played some football locally.

Yes he is from Donny!

[rover-n-out]

Yeah, a Donny lad, his grandad is Phil De Paul who's been singing in the club's for years!

[rtid88]

I went to school and lived just around the corner from his Dad. I believe he was snapped up at a young age by City.

Been a regular member of England youth teams as well.

[Smyth]

Another Doncaster born, 17 y/o, rumoured to be going to Chelsea from Wednesday.

https://x.com/AlexJPMiller/status/2013675348366385528?s=20

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yisa_Alao

[Chris Black come back]

The two children we sold to Manchester United are now in their under 18s side.

[jmt23]

My opinion is DRFC are still pretty poor at picking up local talent, and it still has a money and mates mates thing in some cases ( not just at DRFC by the way)

Then we have to balance that with, who is a young guy more likely to want to sign for with a choice of clubs.

Man City man u, Sheff u, Sheff wed and Leeds are quite prolific at picking up good talent from Doncaster. Then we have clubs of a similar size/standing in Mansfield, Grimsby and Scunthorpe.

Having gone through this with my son, there are loads of very good donny lads in these mentioned clubs.

The bigger clubs are pretty brutal though and just release lads without much reasoning, I’ve seen it crush lads, to the point of leaving football all together.

Then there is a dirty side to the process where they get them to sign contracts,  the kids are unable to leave unless they or another club pays a substantial “development fee”

[GazLaz]

My opinion is DRFC are still pretty poor at picking up local talent, and it still has a money and mates mates thing in some cases ( not just at DRFC by the way)

Then we have to balance that with, who is a young guy more likely to want to sign for with a choice of clubs.

Man City man u, Sheff u, Sheff wed and Leeds are quite prolific at picking up good talent from Doncaster. Then we have clubs of a similar size/standing in Mansfield, Grimsby and Scunthorpe.

Having gone through this with my son, there are loads of very good donny lads in these mentioned clubs.

The bigger clubs are pretty brutal though and just release lads without much reasoning, I’ve seen it crush lads, to the point of leaving football all together.

Then there is a dirty side to the process where they get them to sign contracts,  the kids are unable to leave unless they or another club pays a substantial “development fee”

It’s extremely hard for clubs like us to firstly identify and recruit the extremely good kids and then secondly, hold on to them till they are 18. Nearly impossible. We may receive fees for the decent ones but they are unlikely to get to a point of playing for us.


The system is not set up for potential stars to go through the system at Doncaster Rovers.

[selby]

 If  you saw the work that goes into the academy I think a few would alter their opinions of the club, and the failure of progress of players upwards within the club is not the responsibility of the academy but higher up.
 My opinion is we have no pathway from 18+ so Lads have to be physically as well as technically at least two years advanced on players at other clubs to get the chance,  and the manager has to have the strength to back them, few have McSheffrey probably the only one with Wellens.
  We pick up too many failures from other clubs Who's standing is magnified just because of the club they come from and get the shout when not as good or no better than our own youngsters.
  Two big problems.

[Ian Nimmo]

Agree GL we can’t compete with the big clubs, even if we were to recruit a good young lad, it’s highly unlikely they would remain with us, due to the financial rewards that these clubs offer.
Therefore “scouts” are very active within the local kids leagues at all age levels.

[MachoMadness]

Yeah, a Donny lad, his grandad is Phil De Paul who's been singing in the club's for years!

Can Phil play centre half?

[RugbyRover]

Anyone know what happened to those two lads who got picked up from our academy by Man U I think it was?

[Janso]

The two children we sold to Manchester United are now in their under 18s side.

Not words I ever expected to read, never mind on a third tier football club's forum. 

[DonnyBazR0ver]

Another Doncaster born, 17 y/o, rumoured to be going to Chelsea from Wednesday.

https://x.com/AlexJPMiller/status/2013675348366385528?s=20

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yisa_Alao

Agree with GazLaz. It wouldn’t be right to assume these lads ever had ambitions to play for their home town club and have probably never been on our radar.

Just shows as well, clubs even higher up the food chain face the same issues of having their young stars enticed away and who can blame them?

[Usher wide.]

My nephew has been on Burnley’s books since he was eight.

At the age of ten Man Utd ‘stole him’. He was with them for two years but began to fall out of love with football. He wanted to be back with his mates so he left Man Utd & Burnley took him back on.

He was offered a contract (& accepted it) with Burnley until he reaches sixteen. He’s now just turned fifteen & has been called up by Wales.

There are only two ‘boys’ left from the huge group he trained & played with at eight.

Once he reaches sixteen of course that’s when he’ll be offered a professional contract….or not.

He’s well versed on what will happen if he’s not kept on & is a bright kid with interests in plenty other ‘stuff’ non sporting although apparently he’s a ‘very good’ batsman.

It’s a tough profession to break into let alone progress & ‘succeed’ in.

I played with two lads who were better than Mike Elwiss at the same age (in my humble opinion) but for one reason or another they never got a look in.

[Sprotyrover]

Rovers are very apt at signing kids whose dads played over far better players, ie Alec’s lad, Snodins lad, the MCkay wonder boys etc
What happened when Beaglehole was in charge of our academy? 7 players who went on to greater things, what was he doing right?

[selby]

Beaglehole, Bremner and Setters had no money and were strong enough to take a chance.
  If we had Elwiss, Kitchen and O'Callagan or even the Snodins  would the manager play them, and would some posters on here be willing for a bunch of teenagers to be a midfield and strike force, or would they clamour for experience of division 1 players?
  I think both scenarios would not get played out, as we would not have the confidence or in the supporters case the patience to see it through.

[ForsolongaRover]

It seems that the Academy system backed with the intensive scouting will always identify the vast majority of young talent for the top clubs.

Few will escape the intensive scrutiny of such a network. The other approach is to identify late developers and “undersized” individuals with Kevin Keegan at one end of the scale or the kind that Fergie junior was good at spotting and I suppose Alfie May met both criteria.

So perhaps small youngsters should be the focus!

PS. I always thought Frank Lampard was only 5-9 or 5-10 but later realised that he only looked small at 6 feet alongside his team mates - and that was quite a few years ago now!

[BobG]

Beaglehole, Bremner and Setters had no money and were strong enough to take a chance.
  If we had Elwiss, Kitchen and O'Callagan or even the Snodins  would the manager play them, and would some posters on here be willing for a bunch of teenagers to be a midfield and strike force, or would they clamour for experience of division 1 players?
  I think both scenarios would not get played out, as we would not have the confidence or in the supporters case the patience to see it through.

You've got a very good point there Selby. Although Mike Elwiss slotted in fairly quickly, Peter Kitchen spent a year or more in the first team before he started to come good. He missed some right howlers before that though. Probably he wouldn't survive today.

BobG