Reserve Team

[gainsparkshrew]

Just interested to find out if your club has a reserve team.
Us lot in Shrewsbury don't,when our youngsters get to 18 they are either released or offered a full time contract,of variable length.
Result is that if you get a contract you are immediately moved to the first team squad and inevitably spend the length of your contact sitting on the bench and only starting a game in the Pizza Cup.
At the end of your contract you're released and then go and sign for a National League or Welsh Premier League side
Last one to follow this line and subsequently make it was John McAtee.How much did Luton pay Grimsby for him???.. wasteful, what about your club?

 

[valefan16]

We don’t enter the league anymore as far as I am aware but play what DC calls “Bounce Games” basically friendlies most weeks

 

[Boletus Edulis]

Just interested to find out if your club has a reserve team.
Us lot in Shrewsbury don't,when our youngsters get to 18 they are either released or offered a full time contract,of variable length.
Result is that if you get a contract you are immediately moved to the first team squad and inevitably spend the length of your contact sitting on the bench and only starting a game in the Pizza Cup.
At the end of your contract you're released and then go and sign for a National League or Welsh Premier League side
Last one to follow this line and subsequently make it was John McAtee.How much did Luton pay Grimsby for him???.. wasteful, what about your club?

We have a similar approach, but our results are different. Although we may be blooding ours earlier. We had a 15 year 145 day lad play in the pizza cup last year. Indeed, he was not allowed by school to be in the squad against Ipswich last season. In our pizza cup victory recently we had something like five or more 16-18 year olds on the pitch. I think nearly every first team league game at least one from the under 18s is on the bench. In addition, we usually take a couple extra for away games and they warm up etc, getting a sense of what is required. We do have two early 20s out on loan in league 2. Ryan Law is probably an average league two player, Luke Jephcott most certainly is not.

Of the team tonight, Michael Cooper who is in goal, was rated by league one managers the best keeper in the league last year (Better than Bazuma) has been with us since he was 9. Midfield dynamo and best passer in the team Adam Randell has been with us even longer I think. If he does not get a big money move will be Captain within a year or two.

Other clubs, such as Exeter, are even better than us at bringing them through, though we are improving.

So ostensibly we have the same as you, but our results are longer lasting. I wonder if the blooding them at 16, 17, 18 is what makes the difference. That said, I do wish we had a reserve team.

 

[MatthewArgyle]

Argyle used to have a reserves team that played in the Pontins league in 2006 don't know if it was our reserves or just our youth players.

 

[Railway Blue]

Worst decision ever to get rid of the Central League and the Football Combination.

 

[Guernica]

We don't but I think I read that we may introduce a B team.

 

[valefan16]

Big blow that Ellis Harrison is still out his ban is over but looks like his knock was more serious than thought.

 

[Andy Proctor]

I think alot of teams now just use cup games to play there reserves or back up players.

 

[Greenacres]

We struggle to fill the bench for a first team fixture at times, absolutely no way that we could field a reserve side without increasing the squad size considerably...don't see that happening any time soon.

 

[denzel ecfc]

Aye, had one a few years back, not for years. In fact my first ever live game of football was watching our reserves play in the Western League (i think against Weston Super Mare). In those days reserves also played on the main pitch no wonder it was always knackered.

Our youth team play every week at out training ground, but we loan many of our youngsters out to teams across the south West, so we wouldn't have enough players for a reserve team.

Even up to a few seasons back we used to arrange the occasional midweek game to get players who haven't been playing some game time, but even that seems to have gone now

 

[Railway Blue]

We don't but I think I read that we may introduce a B team.

What's the difference?

 

[Essex2Wessex]

We did play in the Central League in some of our earlier EFL years, pre-pandemic, but we didn't have a fully fledged reserve team as such: the teams we entered there tended to be a mixture of fringe players formally in the main team (even up to the second-choice keeper) and youth players. But not any more.

It seems the Central League does still exist, but in very much slimmed down format compared with the years to 2019/20, and has more or less reverted to its North-of-England origins, and now also has Wrexham Reserves as a member even from outside the EFL (https://www.efl.com/contentassets/1...ba04ff0/central-league-cup-fixtures-22.23.pdf)

 

[denzel ecfc]

What's the difference?

I believe a B Team is a completely separate side, with different management etc. Brentford have a B team but no academy I think.

From wiki (it appears they have reinstated their academy)

After the Brentford Academy was closed at the end of the 2015–16 season,[40] the Development Squad was renamed Brentford B.[29] The team plays friendly matches against senior, U23, U21 and academy teams,[41] with a squad of players aged from 17 to 21.[40] In addition, the team plays in friendly cup competitions and entered competitive cups for the first time during the 2018–19 season.[42][43] The players and staff are part of an ongoing exchange of information with Brentford's partner club FC Midtjylland.[44] Owner Matthew Benham revealed in July 2016 that, with the club needing to focus on the first team and its new stadium, "the B team seemed like a simpler and more attractive option"

 

[Luke Imp]

We got rid of our reserve sides years ago, maybe as far back as 2010.

There was a short spell a handful of years ago where local sides made up their own non-competitive mini league but it got to a stage where, outside of half decent opposition, we were beating what were effectively Sunday League sides 15-0 and wasn't really helping anyone.

In terms of the younger players we generally send them out on loan now, a few end up at either Boston, Gainsborough or Lincoln United and still train with us full time to try and bridge that gap. We used to release at 18 but over but recently been trying to keep the Academy down to smaller numbers and also targeting players who've been released from Derby, Forest, Leicester etc to bring in, give them a second chance and to keep them for another two or three years and give them enough time to develop.

I think we've got six or seven signed up on long term deals at the minute.