Originally Posted by
the other bob wilson
I'm concentrating on Cardiff and Swansea much of the time in the two threads that are hosting the debate about the teams below senior level, but I think what I'm going to say in reply to you can apply more generally.
Apart from the occasional Under 16s match, I only tend to watch the Under 18s play, so I can't comment with any authority about the younger age groups. However, from what I've been led to believe, City still do pretty well when they play the Jacks at the lower age levels - about this time last year, I watched the Under 16s deservedly beat Swansea 1-0 with a team including a few of the team that lost in the Cup Final to the Jacks this week.
This tends to reinforce my opinion that the group we have had representing the Under 18s are among the better ones we've had since we gained Academy status fourteen years ago. Last season, the nucleus of this team formed a strong Under 16 side which, from memory, only lost a couple of matches prior to Christmas, but then it was "broken up" in some respects as many of them were promoted en bloc to the Under 18s.
Playing lads who were three years older than them in some cases meant that they struggled to get wins and it was the same at the start of this season for a while, but from about October onwards, they have been winning lots of matches and I believe that most of them will still be eligible for the Under 18s next season, so you would like to think that, in terms of results, they could be something special by Cardiff City terms if it is decided to keep them playing at that level as opposed to them featuring in the Development team.
Unfortunately, it appears that, historically, it's between the ages of about 16 to 20 where things tend to go wrong for City youngsters. For example, the Wales side which stuffed England 4-0 in the Victory Shield a few years ago was made up mostly of City players and, from memory, it can only be said that Declan John out of that group has, perhaps, come close to fulfilling his potential.
Going back to the jacks, we used to play them regularly at all levels from Development team downwards a while back and I can remember that when the current structure came in about six years ago, we'd win more than we lost against them at Development and Under 18 levels, but this gradually changed and in the season or two before Swansea got level 1 Academy status, they became the dominant team.
Now, we only have the Welsh Youth Cup where we can compare ourselves with Swansea at these levels and with their nine consecutive victories in that competition, there can be no doubt who is winning that particular battle these days.
Swansea also have far more young pros out on loan to other Football League clubs than us which tends to reinforce the view that they are better at eighteen to twenty three level than us.
If I'm right in saying that we are still more than holding our own with the jacks when it comes to the lower age groupings then either they have superb coaching and training for their senior Academy scholars and young pros or, given our complete lack of success in producing our own first team players in recent seasons, the more likely explanation is that the senior staff at our Academy are failing badly in their most important function.
I don't think Craig Bellamy should be lumped in with any criticism of the Academy staff yet because he's only been involved for a little over a year, but there are others who have been around the place for a lot longer than that and yet it seems to me that you have to go all the way back to Neil Ardley's time in the job to find a period when we were producing our own first team players and there weren't too many of them coming through then either.
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