Any decent youngsters?

[Chris FGR]

George Lloyd scored at Lincoln the other day.

 

[EricSabin]

Anyone down here got any decent youngsters coming through?

We seem to be in a good spot academy wise, seems to be a fair few coming through at the moment.

Shaun McWilliams: This kid will go places. 19, central midfielder, got the lot. Loves a tackle and decent on the ball. Won a handful of MOTM awards in League 1 last year which made it even more baffling why Hasselbaink continuously left him, and a full season in League 2 will hopefully see him come on further.

Jay Williams: 17 year old centre half. Impressed enough in training to go on the pre season tour to Spain, think he'll be the fourth centre half this year. Has been getting good reviews in pre season and coped well with James Wilson last night against a Man United eleven.

Also got Camron McWilliams (Shaun's younger brother), Morgan Roberts and Sean Whaler (both just signed pro contracts and both involved a lot in pre season), and also James Goff the keeper who's also got some minutes in the friendlies.

Really good to see 5/6 Northampton born youngsters pushing for first team places, and credit to Dean Austin for giving them chances.

Any other decent prospects knocking about?

Jay Williams has played 9 times and signed a pro deal
Shaun McWilliams has had a stop start campaign through injury but has still played 23 times and done alright
Roberts, Whaler and the younger McWilliams have all featured in the Checkatrade.

Most surprisingly though, Scott Pollock formerly of Hashtag United (YouTube side) has really come through, and has started the last 3 games in central midfield. He signed a pro deal in March along with Bradley Lashley, Ryan Hughes who’s already made his senior debut, and Jack Newell.

Out of that year group of 10 players, 7 were offered professional deals which is bloody good going. All local boys and most had season tickets so really hoping they all get more chances and perform in the first team

 

[Wooderson]

How have they all done then?

We sold Dongda He to Wolves for a rumoured 400k back in August.

 

[UTS]

Callum Styles, 18 and played a lot in L1 for us last season and was a stand out player in an abysmal side.

Tsun Dai looks fairly promising, same age as Styles and also got game time but still looks a bit lightweight.

Scott Burgess is a youngster who spent last season on loan at Macclesfield but I’ve never seen him play

That’s about it for us at the moment.

Callum Stules - Transferred to Barnsley in January for 500k + add ons... seems to have settled pretty well into their squad, gets praise from Barnsley fans when he’s on the pitch.

Tsun Dai - Transfered to Oxford in the summer, assume he’s just a bit part player for them, was a surprising move at the time.

Scott Burgess - Currently on loan at York City in the National North, seems to be doing well albeit at a poor standard.

 

[Luke Imp]

We generally lose ours at 13/14 to the likes of Leicester/Forest/Villa/Birmingham and when you've spent a few years in the NL, it takes a while to build the Academy side back-up and see some promising ones coming through anyway.

Currently have Ellis Chapman at the minute who we sold to Leicester when he was 13 or so, but he asked to leave Leicester and was signed back on here.

He's been training with the first team since the beginning of last season when he was 16 and has been involved heavily in pre-season.

Down the years, we've had tonnes who've been given an opportunity but have had differing outcomes. We were probably guilty of giving too many a chance at times but pre-2010 our youth teams were always very successful but few of them really made the step up from U18 football. You find most of them rattling around the local PT scene at a Gainsborough, Lincoln United, Grantham Town etc.

Ellis Chapman ended up making 15 or so appearances for us, went on loan to Chesterfield in the second half of the season and seems to have played week in, week out there so it's been a solid season for him as a just turned 18 year old with some good minutes across 3 competitions (L2, NL and Checkatrade).

Probably one who'll go out on loan next season, too.

 

[Semi-skimmed Silk]

Peter Vincenti is a great prospect and someone up the ladder should really be trying to sign him. Bags of enery and talent. Amazingly we managed to lock him down with a 2-year contract so he's still signed up for next season, however I'm sure we won't stand in the way of his career if someone comes in for him.

Someone please help us.

 

[hold'um Oldham]

Tom hamer did as predicted and is now first choice right back. Great talent.

However, he isn't our most promising young player, George Edmondson has had a great season as well, getting in the team of the year and has a number of championship clubs sniffing about

 

[TimeyWimey]

We've had a productive season with the youngsters. Harry Pickering, Ryan Wintle, Tom Lowery, Oliver Finney, Owen Dale and Will Jaaskalainen all pretty much confirming they'll be involved in a big way next season with a few more on the peripheries. Pickering, Wintle and Lowery already well established in the first team. We've not had such a solid intake coming through for a while and whilst none are a Nick Powell or Dean Ashton, it sets us up nicely for next season.

Charlie Kirk and Callum Ainley were expected to be the big things this season but I think they've both plateaued a bit. Both big players for us still but still more expected from them.

 

[Chris FGR]

How do clubs manage the step up between the youth alliance and first team? Seems a massive step for any of our kids to make. Doubt any are ready. We tend to get hammered in the Central League when we play a young side.

A lot easier to sign 19/20 year olds released by bigger clubs or playing non league who are used to men's football and develop them.

 

[Luke Imp]

How do clubs manage the step up between the youth alliance and first team? Seems a massive step for any of our kids to make. Doubt any are ready. We tend to get hammered in the Central League when we play a young side.

A lot easier to sign 19/20 year olds released by bigger clubs or playing non league who are used to men's football and develop them.

I don't think many do, tbh.

The reserve teams went out of fashion years ago when U23 sides started coming in. Around here, we set-up a local league which were classed as competitive games against what were effectively Saturday semi-pro sides but we were winning games 9-0, 12-0 at times so they knocked that on the head sharpish.

We've sent a lot of ours on loan to local sides down the years - Boston (NLN), Gainsborough Trinity (NLN in the main) and Lincoln United, Spalding United etc (a couple below NLN).

Tbh, though, at this level, if you're any good, you get picked up before those decisions are having to be made by the Club.

Club's don't generally run with the squad size to warrant reserve or U23 sides either.

 

[Stringy]

We had Jack Thomas a youth team product from a few years ago return as a member of staff recently. I thought when he first started he would be good enough to make it but it seems not. We rave about the youth team a bit but it still doesn't appear to be producing any first teamers.

 

[Crewelad87]

How do clubs manage the step up between the youth alliance and first team? Seems a massive step for any of our kids to make. Doubt any are ready. We tend to get hammered in the Central League when we play a young side.

A lot easier to sign 19/20 year olds released by bigger clubs or playing non league who are used to men's football and develop them.

Were one of a very few at this level (I think Colchester do but they finished bottom) that play at PL2 level. So our young lads play against Premier league and big Championship sides most weeks which helps. Our u23s almost made the end of season play offs also, finishing just one point off 2nd place. It's looking promising at the moment, quite a few decent youngsters in and around our team.

 

[MrGloverLover]

Our entire starting line-up on Monday was under 23.

You'll win nothing with kids.

 

[Indian Dan]

Our entire starting line-up on Monday was under 23.

You'll win nothing with kids.

Yeah. Those goats are fucking useless at football.

 

[Son of Cod]

Harry Clifton - 20, closest to solidifying a first XI spot and is a true utility player. We thought he’d play in CM but he’s all pre-season at RWB. Decent passer, fairly pace and gives his absolute all.

Max Wright- 20, winger. Not made a proper appearance yet but he has 2 years to develop. Is supposedly fast and tricky but he’s quite lightweight atm.

Akheem Rose - 19, striker. One of our weirdest signings. Brought in 18 months ago and never been allowed to play as he had a lot of permit troubles because he isn’t from this country. Has been given the all clear now. He’s incredibly fast but also very raw and needs to work on his positioning. Great potential however.

We've also got Mattie Pollock and Ollie Battersby who have been on the bench for a lot of this season. Pollock is a tall CB who came on and had a decent match at Exeter in a real backs to the wall performance after Whitmore got sent off. Battersby is a keeper and 3rd choice behind Sam Russell.

Jock Curran a defensive midfielder, attacking midifelder (?) Brandon Buckley and striker Rumarn Burrell have all signed contracts this week so we'll head into next season with 8 youth team graduates in the first team squad.

Since that PH post Clifton has gone onto have a decent season in the centre of mid and I'd expect him to be a key figure next season. Max Wright has impressed on loan at Boston and Akheem Rose has had a handful of appearances looking lively most of the time, coming off the bench to score the winner against Crawley earlier on in the season.

They'll all need to put in a lot of hard work but encouraging signs coming from our youth set up at the moment.

 

[Deepcut Cobbler]

Our entire starting line-up on Monday was under 23.

You'll win nothing with kids.

Really?
Will it be a similar line-up at Sixfields on Saturday?

 

[valefan16]

Mike Calverley is the next one, we’ve had a few come through in recent years after a bit of a lull where only really Chris Birchall, Billy Paynter and Sam Morsy had gone on to do much (shot ourselves in the foot with Morsy too)

Smurf wanted to focus on youth (because he wants to make money out of it I guess) and Nathan Smith and James Gibbons have done well for us, Ryan Boot also was a regular last year and done well this year at Solihull.

Calverley has been at Nuneaton and done well so hoping he goes onto develop in the way Smith did, recalled him and he came on against Stevenage and will probably feature in one or both of the last fixtures.

Had a 15 year old come on in the paint pot, Agho I think his name is, Spanish born lad but not even been in the reserves since so no idea how close he is.

Problem we’ve had is we’ve had some very highly rated kids come through but they’ve been sold for big money to Man City and Wolves - 4 in the past year so are going before we’ve even got them through to the first team.

 

[Moomin]

Our latest product to make it in the first team has been Archie Collins who’s played around 25 games this season and has looked very useful. Hard to say how good he will be, but I suspect he will be a big part of our plans next season and he’s just signed a new long-term deal.

We’ve got a lot of young players on the fringes, the best probably being striker, Ben Seymour who’s scored 21 goals on loan at Dorchester this season. Personally I’d like him to be part of the squad next season as he could be useful off the bench.

Finally, we’ve also got a 15 year old being watched by Liverpool. Believe he’s called Ben Chirense, but it would be really annoying if we lost him before he signs a pro deal.

 

[The_Boss]

Our youth team has absolutely pissed the league they were in this season. From what I can see they came up against a local U12s girls team, a young farmers XI and most recently the local blind school's reserve team.

Of course this hasn't stopped many complete idiot's saying that we should play as many of this group of 16/17/18 year olds in the first team as soon as possible, as it's blatantly obvious they could all do a better job than the current first team squad.

 

[MrGloverLover]

Really?
Will it be a similar line-up at Sixfields on Saturday?

Even worse as our winger who has been playing at right back is now out for the rest of the season. We have four fit/half fit defenders left (it would be six but the club are refusing to play two of them).

 

[Deepcut Cobbler]

Even worse as our winger who has been playing at right back is now out for the rest of the season. We have four fit/half fit defenders left (it would be six but the club are refusing to play two of them).

Are you coming in numbers for your (potentially) last away game in the FL for a while?

 

[MrGloverLover]

Are you coming in numbers for your (potentially) last away game in the FL for a while?

I don't think we ever come "in numbers" TBH, however I would hope we take a fair amount. Not sure on sales at the moment.

 

[dedwardp]

Were one of a very few at this level (I think Colchester do but they finished bottom) that play at PL2 level. So our young lads play against Premier league and big Championship sides most weeks which helps. Our u23s almost made the end of season play offs also, finishing just one point off 2nd place. It's looking promising at the moment, quite a few decent youngsters in and around our team.

Yeah, we are at the PL2 level as well. This season we've started sending more of our U23s out on loan to non-league sides to give them men's experience though and have most of our academy playing up a level, hence their results have nosedived drastically this year. So the U23s is mostly U18s, the U18s is mostly U16s and so on. We've had a 15 year old playing in the U23s for much of the season too along with a couple of U16s.

They played Leeds the other week who had players like Izzy Brown in the side, and we've got a group of 16/17 year olds out there. Nick Pope was in the Burnley team the other week.

 

[MrGloverLover]

Our U18s play in EFL Merit League 1. Anyone older than that plays in our first team, although even 3 of our U18s have played first team football this season.

 

[shoddycollins]

Liam McCarron, didn't even mention him in summer. Our youth output has been so poor for a while that we had low expectations and he wasn't even one of the ones offered a pro deal as he'd only just turned 17. Sheridan give him a chance though and he settled into first team football pretty quickly. He's signed a pro deal now, just as all our other first and second year pros have been released. Unfortunately he's missed a couple months through injury, but hoping for a Kyle Dempsey-esque breakthrough next season.