Don't sign for Spurs son!

Subject: Don't sign for Spurs son! Tue Jul 17 2007, 16:51

Interesting Article on Topspurs: Author Sean Morley

http://www.topspurs.com/newsnow/thfccol170707.htm

17th July 2007 - Don't sign for Spurs son!

"Even now, when I go over to my mother's house and dig out the old tracksuit tops I wore, it makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck. I like to think i am part of a special family. I am no longer connected with the club on a daily basis, but I'm delighted with every win and sad about every defeat." Steve Perryman

Driving up and down the country for football, I tend to listen to a lot of the turgid stuff that passes as football reporting, and suffer too much exposure to football phone in programs in particular - usually with their 2 default options

1. 'Hi Harry from Herfordshire- ' I'd just like to say I'm a Spurs fan . We lost today. Martin Jol should be sacked. The team is rubbish.The ref was blind' How dare they get paid £40,000 a week for that'

2. 'Hi Harry from Hertfordshire' I'd just like to say I'm a Spurs fan, We won today. We're brilliant. My wife and children will all be re-named Martin on Monday and Spurs are going to win the League, La Liga, Seria A and the Ashes simultaneously. Like I've always said. Obviously. You heard it hear first'

It's especially bad at this time of year, with no real news and the media looking for stories in the silly season. However on one of the stations who employ the services of some of the more visually challenged presenters, a recent phone in topic which caught the attention was the changing attitudes of young players and british youth generally when signing for a club such as Spurs. It might go a long way to explain the lack of any recent success of our youth development.

Gary Stevens, the ex-Spurs player, and general all round good bloke was of the opinion that British youngsters today have a completely different outlook to when he was learning his trade. In his youth, for him it was all about the glory of playing football, as epitomized by the quote from Stevie Perryman above. Today's youthful prospects however are viewed by Gary to be much more interested in the prospect of instant bling, and even more sadly, are more likely than not to be also seen as meal tickets by their parents. Maybe this is cynical view but it seems to back up what has been said by others, including Stuart Pearce as the manager of the U21 England team when encountering the attitude of his players of playing for England .

The question of the lack of players coming through the ranks at Spurs does make you wonder if there is some truth in these views. However, my opinion is that the celebrity of being an ex-footballer within football, allows for the excuse of mediocrity. In whatever field of work would Stuart Pearce be given the position of U21 coach after his exploits at Man City, In the 'jobs for the boys' club that is English football, talent does not necessarily reach the top and it is far too easy to blame the young boys themselves rather than the system. Trevor Brooking was recently quoted blaming the system under the headline that English football has 5 years to save itself. A similar situation to global warming then!. Sorry Trev, but what, in your job at the FA have you been doing for the last years?

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The last player to make the grade at Spurs was Ledley King. Luke Young counts in premiership terms but only in so far as he established himself at Charlton. He was still a bit part player when he left Spurs. Phil Ifil was threatening to step up when he was 17, but his more recent performances make me wonder if it is now too much for him, and Jol is currently talking up the prospects of Jamie O'Hara.

The club under Enic has for 6 years made it's stated aim the development of youthful excellence a keynote part of the business. Despite the talk of the emphasis on youth and the plans for a development of a top notch academy, it is a sorry state of affairs that the last prospect to make the grade at Spurs made his debut in 1999. I may be open to correction but I think Peter Crouch may be the only other Spurs ex-trainee playing at top level at the moment- although we are due to welcome Stephen Kelly back into the Premiership this year.

Maybe it is a sign of the degree of competition to succeed at Spurs that now only one or two players a decade will make it. But somehow I doubt it. In comparison how many young players have Leeds United, Nottingham Forest or West Ham produced over the same period. We have had, in Dawson, Jenas, Reid, Carrick, Defoe (arguably Charlton rather than West Ham I know) Lennon, and Robinson at least 7 in our ranks recently or at the current time. And that doesn't count the youth players from those clubs that have ended up elsewhere. So in comparison what has happened to the Spurs production line? Is it the fault of the players or the system?

If you were a young teenage hopeful, would you bother signing for Spurs? From the record above it seems to me is that it is more likely to harm your prospective career. Even if you are poached from another youth set-up are you likely to 'make' it? Spurs recent record in that department is hardly encouraging.

Looking at the current batch, Mark Yeates has now left the club, it's probably too late for Lee Bernard to make a mark and I can't think of anyone else threatening to make a step up. There were high hopes for Terry Dixon when he was called into Ireland 's squad, but it remains to be seen if he can recover from his injury blight last season, and the news has gone cold on him. O'Hara was enticed from Arsenal a few years ago (as Stevie Carr before him) and of the rest, the majority of the most likely candidates have been signed from other clubs and are not truly homegrown (Huddlestone/ Leigh Mills/ Dervitte amongst others). And having signed some of these highly rated youth or young prospects, they never seem to step up or get are offered a half hearted chance before they are shunted off to Colchester , Leyton Orient or MK Dons.

What is more telling is the fact that none of them (Crouch apart) seem to make their mark when they leave the club, and prove the club wrong. Maybe the psychological blow for the individual youngster is too much to bear, and the trauma of being released by Spurs ruins their footballing life, so they can never play at the top level. (Crouch being the exception that proves the rule). Maybe there is something is the psychological impact of being rejected as a trainee footballer, and in England too much talent is lost at too early an age. We tend to discard them at 17/18 whereas the youngsters with potential tend to be given a chance to 21/22 abroad. Which funnily enough, appears to be the age at which we try and sign them. The individual hunger of a player may be a factor, as maybe whether a player has an obsession with bling. The obsession with bling does not appear to have done David Beckham any harm does it? And the fact that none of the youth prospects appear to bounce back to play at the top level suggests that the standards at the academy were not good enough in the first place, rather than it being solely down to the attitude of the boys. And those standards haven't been good enough for a long time.

If and when Spurs can learn again how to spot talent below the age of 16, and then train them properly, they might save themselves a fortune in the transfer market, and avoid having to pay millions for the latest 18 -20 year old off the production line at Aldershot or Auxerre. We, the supporters might also be less frantic that we have not signed a left footed midfielder by midnight at the end of each and every transfer window.

I hope that with the ousting of Pleat and the appointment of Comolli, we have improved the standard of scouting and coaching at the club, so that the future will be brighter. If we have not improved the quality of the standards at Spurs however, it would do no harm for Spurs to try and entice the scouts and youth coaches responsible for the goldmines at Forest and Leeds who 'found' and nurtured all of this talent in recent years. It might also give out a message to the current and future Spurs trainees out there, that at Spurs you get a good football education so that if you don't make it here, you can still make it anywhere else. But until I see that the latest Spurs reject that rolls off the production line is being courted by other Premiership clubs (as with Chopra/ Aliadiere etc), rather than the Colchesters of this world, I can only reach the conclusion that Comolli apart, the youth set up has been clueless and simply hoping to unearth a diamond by luck rather than judgment for many years.

As a final point, in this age of obsession with bling and celebrity status for no discernable talent, whatever money Spurs paid for him, the signing of Darren Bent is very welcome. He is reported to have turned down the offer of a lot more money at West Ham, although I accept he is still on something of a king's ransom at Spurs. The reports say that he signed for the chance of some glory at Spurs. It was the lure of this glory (and European football with added England prospects) that was the key, and not the money. It's a good sign and it gives me some optimism that at least one Spurs player will be giving it 100% and will be fit to wear the shirt in the proud tradition of Stevie Perryman.

Welcome Darren. I hope you've bought your shooting boots, and if you have a better younger brother, don't ask him to join the Spurs Academy too soon!

Columnist Profile – Sean Morley

'As a Spurs supporter, a black sheep amongst his unenlightened arsenal supporting family, the only one with the sense to see the light of salvation. A Spurs supporter who would like to see Spurs return to traditional values, starting with Hughton standing in the technical area waving a large flag and shouting Tora Tora Tora at the team for 90 minutes. It would make as much sense as his diagrams'

Your Thoughts Gentlemen? Question

Edgar Davids Joined : 06 Jun 2007 Posts : 2576

Can't argue with much of that, the evidence is against us. I doubt the ManU scenario will happen again in the near future, but we definitely have a dearth of youngsters actually playing their way through all the ranks at Spurs in to the first team. It would be interesting to see what the other clubs are doing (Chelsea spring to mind), it seems to me that all the big clubs poach youngsters in their mid-teens these days, so I doubt we're the only ones with a poor record.