News of a Development Squad, to start next season in conjunction with the appointment of a Director of Football, sounds a step in the right direction. Something between the Academy and the first team squad, to help bring on youngsters and to offer valuable playing opportunities to fringe players in need of minutes. Well done to all concerned.

Certainly an interesting development. Anyone aware of how many other League 1 & 2 teams do this, and how many fixtures could we expect to have?

I think this a major move for the club, things seem to be progressing nicely off the pitch , commercially with sponsorships etc and this is also a next step project.
Time will tell then if the current academy players are good enough to go on to make professional careers in the sport instead of being lost during the wilderness years of 18-21

Great news. Where did you see this?

I've always been a fan of the Brentford model. Worth a read if you aren't sure how they have done it: https://www.theguardian.com/football/20 ... e-outcasts

It was in Gavin’s programme notes from the last game, available on line.

As someone familiar with academy set-ups, I think this is a good move for the players involved but possibly will have only marginal and slow benefits for the club.

What happens now is young lads are scouted into the development system from age seven and the better players into an academy team which train but don’t play any matches until age 12.

From a youngsters’ and parental perspective this is probably a good thing, no real pressure early on etc. But what happens is the same players continue playing for their grassroots clubs until 12 and the gifted few catch the eyes of Cardiff, and the 2 Bristol clubs - City particularly are adept at scouting throughout South Wales, I also know of Southampton, Leicester and WBA scouts who operate locally.

So County lose the better players early on, and very few graduate all the way to the U18 side, normally losing interest or try elsewhere aged 14-16. County then pick up lads rejected by City’s academy aged 16-18 so effectively we end up with players discarded elsewhere so not a huge surprise that very few can make the leap into first team football.

I’m actually due a £500 retainer from Cardiff City after a player I scouted and coached for them aged 7 turned pro last month. Fat chance of me seeing the cheque I suspect.

So this County development side idea will be a good bridge from academy to first team fringes as long as they recruit the right coaches to help them develop, someone like O’B might be an excellent choice to lead it. If it’s not managed well then it will become a costly white elephant - first team fringe players won’t be motivated by training daily with 16yo academy lads plus there’s unlikely to be any structured game programme unless they get agreement to enter the Welsh league.

Top marks to the club for effort and I hope it works out.

As I understood it from the programme notes, the development squad is intended to be the link between the post-18s and the first team so I'd expect it to be made up of scholars who have been offered pro contracts and first team fringe players/players returning from injury etc.
I don't think there will be many, if any, 16-year-olds involved.
As someone who follows the U18s team and watches as many of their home games (from a distance this season!) as I can, we certainly have more home-grown players than in previous years and there's more compensation protection if bigger clubs come calling for players who've come through our system as we're now a category 3 academy.

Hearing some good stories about the academy team this year , if you have watched them regularly what’s your honest opinion on the players ?

Jdw4127 wrote:Hearing some good stories about the academy team this year , if you have watched them regularly what’s your honest opinion on the players ?

The U18 academy side generally hold their own against other sides but, bar one or two who we’ve seen in Lge2 and Pizza Cup action, few are up to the standard on a consistent basis and will drift into Welsh league football. This is based on my watching them once or twice a month for 3+ seasons.

There are a handful of quality players at lower age groups and generally all the sides try to play good passing football from the back. No number 9s coming through though so we’ll need to keep signing journeymen from other clubs for a few more years.

Great news for Bristol City's academy.