Originally Posted by
the other bob wilson
The video of the Watford game on the weekend shows one of the visiting players who looks an awful lot younger and smaller than his team mates, so I'm sure you're right, the teams we play at this level every week are not always made up of eighteen year olds.
However, the inference of what you say about our team is that they are all "old" by the standards of the league they play in - this struck me as wrong, so I decided to look into it.
The team which played on Saturday was missing the best player in the under 18 squad in my opinion, Sion Spence - he was eighteen yesterday as it turns out. Also absent since very early in the season has been Keenan Patten who, with Spence and Sam Bowen makes up a very good central midfield three for this level - Keenan was born on 7/4/01, so, at seventeen, he's eligible to play for the Under 18s next season.
The team which played Watford contained one player, Nianza Mayembe, whose date of birth I could not find, but I can remember watching him play for our Under 16s against Swansea a couple of seasons ago (I met you at the game) and being told that he was 13 or 14 at that time, so, assuming that's true, he's got at least two seasons of being eligible for the Under 18s left.
The oldest of the other ten starters on Saturday was keeper George Ratcliffe who only reached eighteen on 12 September, centreback Ryan Reynolds is three days younger than George and they are the only two out of the ten who are eighteen today. Another centreback, Trystan Jones, will be eighteen on Sunday, but if I've understood the rules correctly, those three (plus Spence) are the only ones who won't be available at this level next season.
The rest are seventeen or under. Next oldest is captain Sam Bowen who was born on 14/1/01, while striker Dan Griffiths was born two days later. Recent signing from Southampton Joel Bagan won't be eighteen until the third of September next year and striker Isaak Davies only turned seventeen on the 25th of last month - so, that makes them eligible for another two seasons of Under 18 football I believe.
The other three are 16 year old's Connor Davies (born 7/5/02) and Rubin Colwill (27/4/02) and Eli King, who won't be sixteen until 22 December.
So, if the sides we are playing at youth level are including their fair share of under age players, then the same definitely applies with City. Most of these players were part of an Under 16 squad from a couple of seasons ago which struck me as, potentially, one of the best crops of youngsters I'd seen since we gained Academy status in 2004 and the intervening period has done nothing to make me change my mind.
I'm not going to say that there are x number of players who will play for City's first team in our Under 18 squad and their names are......., but I'd be very disappointed if none of them go on to be professionals at senior level who play league football - based on recent years though, how likely is it that they will do so at Cardiff?
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