A serious concern

[Wellred]

One thing that really does concern me is the lack of local players who have come through from juniors to actually make it into the first team.
Over the years we have brought through some good/great local players starting with the legendary Alick Jeffrey, through to Peter Kitchen, Mike Elwiss,The Snods, Dave Harle, etc etc.
Can ayone tell me the last player to actually come through from the juniors who was a rovers player/apprentice from the start?
Forget Paul Green he started at Sheffield Wednesday.
Who was the last player who started his career as a boy at DRFC and went on to be a success in the first team?

Come on Rigo here is a bit of homework for you!

[Wellred]

I think Waide Fairhurst started at Sheffield WSednesday but I stand to be corrected.
Of the names you mention whilst they have briefly flirted with the first team none of them have ever established themselves.

[grayx]

Unfortunately, the youth team set up at Rovers is pretty poor. The guys that run it appear out of touch with modern football and place far too much emphasis on fitness rather than football skills (allegedly SOD has raised this as a concern).
Add to this the fact that we don't have a reserve team to help progress players,its no surprise no local talent is coming through.

[hoolahoop]

Time it was sorted out then, we can't progress this way it doesn't make sense especially financially.

[dickos1]

A lot of players who come through clubs youth teams don't originally start at that club, look at beckham and scholes, they were both at other clubs at a very young age. Signing apprentice forms should define whether a club is home grown, before this players only train once a week with their respective clubs. Green would of been 14/15 when we signed him.

[DonnyNoel]

Local or otherwise there isn't anyone who has been with the clubs youth set up any significant amount of time and gone on to make a significant impact for us.

Green and Fairhurst may show up on a technicality as I beleive they both signed youth terms with us before signing pro terms so whilst we offered little to their development, they did technically progress from our youth team to sign their first pro terms.

I accept the clubs rapid rise through the leagues has hindered us slightly in terms of recruiting youngsters, as will the intense local competition and the carpet bombing recruitment technique of premiership clubs but if we're going to continue to punch above our weight we need to be able to rely on our youth set up to chip in with a player every now and then.

[dickos1]

dickos1 wrote:

A lot of players who come through clubs youth teams don't originally start at that club, look at beckham and scholes, they were both at other clubs at a very young age. Signing apprentice forms should define whether a player  is home grown, before this players only train once a week with their respective clubs. Green would of been 14/15 when we signed him.

Alterered the mistake!!

[Wellred]

I think you will find that both Beckham and Scholes started at man Utd.

[DonnyNoel]

Wellred wrote:

I think you will find that both Beckham and Scholes started at man Utd.

That's up for debate depending on how you young you go to define \"started\". Becks was at Spurs centre of excellence for a while (after being coached by Ryan Kirby's dad) and signed YTS forms with Man Utd when 14.

[dickos1]

I think you will find beckham started at tottenham

[dickos1]

Beat me too it

[dickos1]

Another name to back me up,, Ryan giggs started as a youngster at man city,

[hoolahoop]

Macclesfield Town has a quality youth set up, it should be a priority.

[DonnyBazR0ver]

Sean has discussed this fairly recently and touched on it again at the recent forum. He said bluntly the youth players we have are not good enough.

To improve the youth set up needs serious investment and we haven't got the resources, particularly as more money is soaked up by the first team squad.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Rigoglioso wrote:

It depends what is defined as a success. However, since the re-introduction of the Rovers Youth Team a few years ago, then Adam Brown, Jon Maloney, Craig Nelthorpe, Waide Fairhurst, Rob Pacey, Lee Cockerham, Liam Green, Anthony Griffith and Chris Dickman all progressed through the set-up and signed professional forms with the club.

However, whether all of them started out at Doncaster Rovers or elsewhere initially, is a mystery to me. I know Anthony Griffith was effectively poached from Glasshoughton MW though.

One assumes that the measure of a youth policy is whether it can identify schoolboy players and nurture them such that they go on to have a reasonable length career in one of the top 4 tiers. Say 4 or 5 years as a regular pro? Preferably with us, but not necessarily. Circumstances may dictate that they don't get a chance with us but blossom elsewhere.

By which measure, our youth system has produced precisely...err...no-one since the mid-90s.

I'm gueesing the last one would have been someone like Scott Maxfield who made his debut on 94?

O'Driscoll can say all he wants about the cost of a youth set-up, but that is a truly dreadful record.

SOME clubs have to spot and nurture talent, otherwise there would be no professional players. There are 92 clubs in the top 4 tiers, with maybe 20 established pros at each club, that's 1800 established pro players. And our youth system has brought not a single one of them from school to pro level.

What this has cost us over the last 20 years in lost ability and lost income from transfer fees does not bear thinking about. Think back to the mid 80s, when we produced Brevett, Rankine, Deane and Raven over just two years. What would that lot be worth in transfer fees today, assuming we sold them to Tier 1 or very big Tier 2 clubs as 20 year olds as we did with them back then? £5million collectively?

This is a very big ball and chain on our development as a club. While ever we fail spectacularly to nurture our own talent, we have no option but to pay top whack to buy somebody else's, or to survive on bits and pieces cast-offs.

[dickos1]

Surely green is the last one? We signed him as a 14/15 year old and he was offered an apprenticeship and progressed from this into our first team!

[BillyStubbsTears]

I'll stand correcting on this, but I thought Green was on schoolboy terms at Sheffield Weds and we only picked him up as a 17 year old.

[DonnyBazR0ver]

I've heard many a Sheff U and Barnsley fan bemoaning the lack of output from their academies.

Recently Sheff U had the 'Two Kyles' and received very little relatively for their transfers. The 'investment' particularly with the high costs involved does not seem to be value for money.

Very sad though.

[dickos1]

He wasn't offered apprentice forms with Wednesday. He had just turned 25 when he left us and had been with us over 9 years so would of been 15/16 when he signed for us.