Club statement on bullying allegations

[dembethewarrior]

Sign out from Wales Bales and Ronnie Bird and sign back in with Life on Mars and we'll have the full house again!

You're an absolute weapon of a bloke

That 3 for 1 all in a row was brilliant 😂

[Wales-Bales]

That 3 for 1 all in a row was brilliant ��

You can't pleas everybody, especially those who don't even know what day of the week it is

[dembethewarrior]

That's the point I was trying to make, but it seems as though you are not allowed to comment about such things on here. One of my coaches came through the ranks with Alex Ferguson, so they would have had a similar outlook and shared experiences about the game of football. He was a perfectly reasonable fella, but he did like to have a good rant every now and then. It was nothing personal, he was just trying to get the best out of the players. At the end of the day some people can handle it, and some people can't.

For **** sake you don’t half ramble some utter shit.

[Wales-Bales]

For **** sake you don’t half ramble some utter shit.

You can't beat of bit of real life experience when it comes to chewing the fat on football message boards.

[Father Dougal]

For **** sake you don’t half ramble some utter shit.

How disrespectful! Wales Bales clearly has a lot of real life experience we could all learn from.

[Tuerto]

You can't beat of bit of real life experience when it comes to chewing the fat on football message boards.

No disrespect, but anyone who has a pulse has real life experience, and just because it happened to you or any one of us, it doesn't mean that it's right for someone else, you seem to struggle with that.

[Wales-Bales]

How disrespectful! Wales Bales clearly has a lot of real life experience we could all learn from.

You shouldn't have listened to your teacher when he said you'll never do anything with your life

[Father Dougal]

You shouldn't have listened to your teacher when he said you'll never do anything with your life

Did your teacher predict your “carefully constructed internet persona?”

[life on mars]

Is it just me or is this comment a bit barbed?

"I have probably relied too much on my own life experiences playing under some of the best coaches in the world rather than assessing the sensitivities of a new generation of players."

Yes I read it the same way , it reads of someone being asked to say the right thing to move this on ,the bit about the insensetive nature of the new generation speaks volumnes of todays snowflake society .

[Wales-Bales]

No disrespect, but anyone who has a pulse has real life experience, and just because it happened to you or any one of us, it doesn't mean that it's right for someone else, you seem to struggle with that.

I know full well that it's not right for everybody. You have to know your own capabilities and limitations, and if you can't hack it try then just something else. I wouldn't join the army and complain if people started shouting at me, and then try to change the things that didn't fit my demeanor.

[Wales-Bales]

Did your teacher predict your “carefully constructed internet persona?”

I was on the internet long before any teachers had ever heard of it

[Father Dougal]

I was on the internet long before any teachers had ever heard of it

Aw something else you have pioneered in?

[Wales-Bales]

Aw something else you have pioneered in?

Not exactly, but I was around before the first web browser came along

[Jimmy the Jock]

If believing that young people shouldn't be bullied or abused at work is considered 'PC', then I definitely fall into that category.

Using a term like 'PC' in this context is a bit pathetic though, isn't it? A bit childish. A bit idiotic. A bit ****ing ridiculous, really.

Its my opinion.

If you and your ilk want to look at the situation with some balance then I wouldn't have used such terminology , in fact I wouldn't have commented.
Have you returned as a Cardiff City supporter , or are you just looking to emphasis the negatives you see round the club? As usual.

[Jimmy the Jock]

Isn’t it a shame that this thread is in danger of being hijacked, firstly, by someone who tried to turn it into a discussion about himself and then by old men, who see “political correctness gone mad” around every corner, trying to politicise things with talk about what it was like in their day.

I’ve seen and heard it said on many occasions throughout my life that the art of good management includes an appreciation of who among your charges benefits from a kick up the backside and who among them prospers from a more diplomatic approach.

People are different and if a manager adopts a take it or leave it approach whereby the same standards are applied to everyone, they run the risk of talented employees with great potential falling by the wayside because of that inflexible approach – if that is happening in a profession like youth coaching at a football club then surely that has to be counter productive to said club?

Returning to what this thread is supposed to be about, let’s not forget that we’re talking here about a club whose Academy is failing completely in the task it was set up for – whatever the methods used in the past decade or so have been, they can only be judged as having failed.

My first instinct on reading the club statement was that there were an awful lot of words which, taken as a whole, conveyed a vague impression without actually saying anything meaningful – a whitewash in other words.

Furthermore, it was a whitewash which included a ready made scapegoat, who was no longer at the club, who could be seen as the “root of the problem”. Now, I don’t think anyone who is aware of the Craig Bellamy persona can admit to being totally surprised by the accusations which surfaced nearly a year ago – even his greatest fan would have to accept the possibility that they could, conceivably, be true.

However, Cardiff City’s Academy was failing in it’s primary function long before Craig Bellamy became involved with it and, although I’m not going to break a confidence here, it's my understanding that the problems did not begin and end with Craig Bellamy.

What I can say without breaking that confidence is that kids in the pre Academy age group at Cardiff City (ages seven to eight) are being told to “smash em” and “take skin” in their training sessions – I can’t speak for others, but I wouldn’t want a child of mine to be the subject of an approach like that

Hard to disagree with any of that .
As someone who watches a lot of youth football have you personally ever seen any bullying at Cardiff City?
Do you think Craig Bellamy improved the youngsters he was coaching (and style of football)?

If there are coaches encouraging kids to take skin etc , they shouldn't be coaching at any level never mind Cardiff City.

[The Lone Gunman]

If you and your ilk want to look at the situation with some balance then I wouldn't have used such terminology , in fact I wouldn't have commented.
Have you returned as a Cardiff City supporter , or are you just looking to emphasis the negatives you see round the club? As usual.

I'm not a Cardiff City supporter in the true sense of the term. I attend games occasionally and I follow the club with a keen interest, but as a result of the re-brand and the reaction to it I doubt I'll be a full-on City fan again and I certainly won't be a supporter until Vincent Tan has slung his hook.

As for the club's statement, I don't view it as a negative. On the contrary, in fact. The club has apparently investigated allegations of bullying and abuse within its youth set-up, discovered a number of significant concerns and acted upon them. That appears to me to be a positive as opposed to a negative. After all, the club's youth system hasn't produced a first team regular in many years, so something clearly needs to change.

[the other bob wilson]

Hard to disagree with any of that .
As someone who watches a lot of youth football have you personally ever seen any bullying at Cardiff City?
Do you think Craig Bellamy improved the youngsters he was coaching (and style of football)?

If there are coaches encouraging kids to take skin etc , they shouldn't be coaching at any level never mind Cardiff City.

Sorry for not replying earlier Jimmy. I'd assumed that my message had not received any responses - something which I was very disappointed by given what I said about what is being said to seven and eight year olds, I'm assured that this is true and, surely, this should be a source of concern to supporters?

You ask if I have seen bullying at the games I've been at. I don't think I have, but I would qualify that by saying that I'm not sure that there would be much, if any, at the games themselves - I would have thought it would be more likely to happen "behind closed doors" at training sessions or in dressing room inquests.

As for Craig Bellamy, it's tough to come to conclusions about how well or badly he was doing, but what I will say is that the results of the Under 18 side improved (granted, results aren't everything) in the year or so he was a regular in the dug out at matches. From memory, City's under 18s finished 17/18 well and were top of their league when he was placed on his gardening leave - they did end up winning the league, but results were not as good in the second half of the season and they owed their title win as much to their rival falling away as to good results of their own.

The style of play under Bellamy did not differ greatly from what it was before he got involved because City have, basically, played a more possession based game at this level, certainly compared to the senior team, ever since the Academy started up in 2004. Most of the time, I'm a long way from the dug out at games, so it's hard to get an idea of what is being said, but the impression I got was that Bellamy would get most animated when he saw the team being careless in possession.