Royals sign Jordan Obita

[Smoking Kills Dancing Doe]

People will talk of Reading as one of the top production lines in football over the next few years, they will keep on coming and coming.....

Pardon me for not being massively over-enthused about being the new Crewe.

Perhaps we could take the Crewe model to a new level. They did exceptionally well for essentially a skint small club, bouncing back and forth between tier two and three mainly for quite some time.. Maybe we can do the same, for a medium sized club bouncing back and forth between tier one and two.

I could live with that.

Crewe are run on tiny, tiny budget. They could never keep hold of players long enough to benifit. Tiny ground, with tiny crowds and to be honest their academy is no way near what it was even a few years ago.

Reading's Academy >>>>> Crewe's Academy

[shaka's shorts]

The Academy is great and doing a great job, but we have a long way to go to match the success of Crewe's in the 80's - David Platt, Rob Jones, Geoff Thomas (Neil Lennon?) are ones I can remember - all England internationals.

Can't wait to see Reading produce an academy boy that goes onto play for England - last one would have been Neil Webb I would think?

[rabidbee]

Crewe's demise is surely down to the fact that bigger clubs are now hunting for future stars whilst they're still in their early teens, rather than once they've had an impact in the lower leagues, and hold onto what they have firmly. Half of the great Crewe players of yesteryear were picked up from their bigger near neighbours.

[Seal]

The Academy is great and doing a great job, but we have a long way to go to match the success of Crewe's in the 80's - David Platt, Rob Jones, Geoff Thomas (Neil Lennon?) are ones I can remember - all England internationals.

Can't wait to see Reading produce an academy boy that goes onto play for England - last one would have been Neil Webb I would think?

There's loads more than that.

Robbie Savage
Dean Ashton
Danny Murphy
Seth Johnson
Rob Hulse

As rabidbee says, different era unfortunately. So much more competitive now for young players - look at how many Chelsea have stolen off us over the past few years.

I would argue 'Boro would be a better academy model for us to follow than Crewe. Similar infrastructure and income streams, and are consistently producing good quality English youngsters.

[Hoop Blah]

Seal, how many have they nicked off us then?

We've always lost players to bigger and better Academy's, including a lot to Palace in the not so distant pass. What Crewe used to do so well was pick up the scraps that didn't stay at the top clubs and develop them into top players.

Savage for example, wasn't actually a product of the Crewe Academy/Youth Scheme as he was at Man Utd until he was something like 20. Similar story with David Platt, Geoff Thomas and Neil Lennon.

There's no doubting that Dario Gradi could spot talent and nurture is though.

Rob Jones and Dean Ashton both came through the youth ranks proper though, IIRC.

[Smoking Kills Dancing Doe]

Ashton came through at Stoke.

[Hoop Blah]

Ashton came through at Stoke.

Thought he was only there for a bit to be honest, and just checked it out, seems he spent a bit of time there as a young kid before drifting back to just playing for his school and then Crewe.

Reading do a fair bit of recruiting from other academies as well of course.

[Sun Tzu]

Palace tended to pick up players from round here when we didn't have an Academy and Geoff Warner ran their local operation.

Since we became an Academy (and pinched Geoff off them !) I'm not sure this is such a fertile recruitment ground for them, although as has been mentioned all clubs have pretty extensive networks and no Academy has only local kids (or even mainly local kids )

[Hoop Blah]

Palace tended to pick up players from round here when we didn't have an Academy and Geoff Warner ran their local operation.

Since we became an Academy (and pinched Geoff off them !) I'm not sure this is such a fertile recruitment ground for them, although as has been mentioned all clubs have pretty extensive networks and no Academy has only local kids (or even mainly local kids )

Totally right, and there is now the 90 minute travelling rule too which cuts down some of the kids be able to go further afield. They still try to get kids from round here though.

We always had a youth set up mind, it just didn't compete very well with a lot of the alternatives for the better kids in the area.

[Sun Tzu]

Palace tended to pick up players from round here when we didn't have an Academy and Geoff Warner ran their local operation.

Since we became an Academy (and pinched Geoff off them !) I'm not sure this is such a fertile recruitment ground for them, although as has been mentioned all clubs have pretty extensive networks and no Academy has only local kids (or even mainly local kids )

Totally right, and there is now the 90 minute travelling rule too which cuts down some of the kids be able to go further afield. They still try to get kids from round here though.

We always had a youth set up mind, it just didn't compete very well with a lot of the alternatives for the better kids in the area.

It was rather informal and against clubs that had proper set up it just wasn't appealing to kids or parents. Palace were very sophisticated and of course could offer the prospects of playing at a higher level

[Seal]

Seal, how many have they nicked off us then?

We've always lost players to bigger and better Academy's, including a lot to Palace in the not so distant pass. What Crewe used to do so well was pick up the scraps that didn't stay at the top clubs and develop them into top players.

Savage for example, wasn't actually a product of the Crewe Academy/Youth Scheme as he was at Man Utd until he was something like 20. Similar story with David Platt, Geoff Thomas and Neil Lennon.

There's no doubting that Dario Gradi could spot talent and nurture is though.

Rob Jones and Dean Ashton both came through the youth ranks proper though, IIRC.

Chelsea nicked a few young lads a few years ago didn't they? When Rogers went there. Tom Lyskov (sp?) or something was one I think...

As for Crewe, ok so one guy on my list started somewhere else, but Ashton, Hulse, Murphy & Johnson are all Crewe products (4/5 aint bad).

I know all about Palace's youth scheme in the Reading area. Loads of my footballing peers when I was growing up chose Palace over Reading. I had a trial myself there. Andy Gray was the coach, always scouting round the Reading area. One of the lads I played with was a guy called Shane Small, all skill but bad attitude. Reading were desperate to sign him but he went to Palace. Seem to remember he got sacked for stealing from the changing rooms though in memory serves me right.

[Hoop Blah]

Informal?

It was a proper YTS scheme (up and until that changed name) that offered the same as most similar clubs at the time. It might not have been as structured as the Academy set ups we see all over the place these days, but it as pretty standard fair for it's time (although not a very good or successful one).

We're much better placed to attract and develop decent players now thats for sure.

[Hoop Blah]

Chelsea nicked a few young lads a few years ago didn't they? When Rogers went there. Tom Lyskov (sp?) or something was one I think...

As for Crewe, ok so one guy on my list started somewhere else, but Ashton, Hulse, Murphy & Johnson are all Crewe products (4/5 aint bad).

I know all about Palace's youth scheme in the Reading area. Loads of my footballing peers when I was growing up chose Palace over Reading. I had a trial myself there. Andy Gray was the coach, always scouting round the Reading area. One of the lads I played with was a guy called Shane Small, all skill but bad attitude. Reading were desperate to sign him but he went to Palace. Seem to remember he got sacked for stealing from the changing rooms though in memory serves me right.

Shane Small has had plenty of opportunities to make it since...like you say though, all the ability but lacking the application to make it at that level. As Sun Tzu said, Geoff Warner did a great job for them in getting them the better talent from around the town (Hayden Mullins and Tom Soares both made it too).

I think Lyskov was the only one I can think of that went over to Chelsea. They tried to get James Henry as well but he turned them down. I'm sure there are others too, I just didn't know who and was wondering if you did. I wasn't having a pop.

Same with the Crewe thing. My point was that it's not always about bring the players through the whole set up, but getting the likes of Platt, Savage, Lennon etc when they drop out of their clubs and giving them the opportunity to make it in the first team.

We did the same with the likes of Boucaud, Henderson, Young, Rifat etc to varying degrees of success of course.

[Plymouth_Royal]

Seal, how many have they nicked off us then?

We've always lost players to bigger and better Academy's, including a lot to Palace in the not so distant pass. What Crewe used to do so well was pick up the scraps that didn't stay at the top clubs and develop them into top players.

Savage for example, wasn't actually a product of the Crewe Academy/Youth Scheme as he was at Man Utd until he was something like 20. Similar story with David Platt, Geoff Thomas and Neil Lennon.

There's no doubting that Dario Gradi could spot talent and nurture is though.

Rob Jones and Dean Ashton both came through the youth ranks proper though, IIRC.

Chelsea nicked a few young lads a few years ago didn't they? When Rogers went there. Tom Lyskov (sp?) or something was one I think...

As for Crewe, ok so one guy on my list started somewhere else, but Ashton, Hulse, Murphy & Johnson are all Crewe products (4/5 aint bad).

I know all about Palace's youth scheme in the Reading area. Loads of my footballing peers when I was growing up chose Palace over Reading. I had a trial myself there. Andy Gray was the coach, always scouting round the Reading area. One of the lads I played with was a guy called Shane Small, all skill but bad attitude. Reading were desperate to sign him but he went to Palace. Seem to remember he got sacked for stealing from the changing rooms though in memory serves me right.

Yea I remember those days. A couple of mates of mine were wanted by Reading but chose Palace instead, our youth scheme was a joke then. It's a lot better now though with only Chelsea and Arsenal getting the odd player from us. Shane small!! didn't he play for Dee Road Rangers.
As for Lyskov yea he got nicked by Chelsea but came back after 1 season because he didn't like it there. He's now given up football and is now at Loughborough (sp?) University. His brother Nicolas is in our academy though. There was another kid Chelsea nicked from us too, a defender, but I can't remember his bloody name. Same for Arsenal they nicked a quality midfielder from us a year and a half ago, keep seeing him getting the train to london on my way to work!

[rfcjoe]

Seal, how many have they nicked off us then?

We've always lost players to bigger and better Academy's, including a lot to Palace in the not so distant pass. What Crewe used to do so well was pick up the scraps that didn't stay at the top clubs and develop them into top players.

Savage for example, wasn't actually a product of the Crewe Academy/Youth Scheme as he was at Man Utd until he was something like 20. Similar story with David Platt, Geoff Thomas and Neil Lennon.

There's no doubting that Dario Gradi could spot talent and nurture is though.

Rob Jones and Dean Ashton both came through the youth ranks proper though, IIRC.

Chelsea nicked a few young lads a few years ago didn't they? When Rogers went there. Tom Lyskov (sp?) or something was one I think...

As for Crewe, ok so one guy on my list started somewhere else, but Ashton, Hulse, Murphy & Johnson are all Crewe products (4/5 aint bad).

I know all about Palace's youth scheme in the Reading area. Loads of my footballing peers when I was growing up chose Palace over Reading. I had a trial myself there. Andy Gray was the coach, always scouting round the Reading area. One of the lads I played with was a guy called Shane Small, all skill but bad attitude. Reading were desperate to sign him but he went to Palace. Seem to remember he got sacked for stealing from the changing rooms though in memory serves me right.

Again, I played with these lads who were taken, and the others taken from us were, George Saville, and Brendan's son, Anton.

[Royal With Cheese]

Again, I played with these lads who were taken, and the others taken from us were, George Saville, and Brendan's son, Anton.

Does BR have a son called Anton? (or whoosh as appropriate)

[rfcjoe]

Yes. Yes, he does.

[Hoop Blah]

Again, I played with these lads who were taken, and the others taken from us were, George Saville, and Brendan's son, Anton.

Does BR have a son called Anton? (or whoosh as appropriate)

Bit like his Dads management career his season only runs from May to December!!!

[Ian Royal]

Anton Rogers - the actor, was a prick.

[Sun Tzu]

Anton Rogers - the actor, was a prick.

Was he really, or was he merely playing a role ?

You need to show more respect to a former Readingite who was a big fan of the club.