Originally Posted by
the other bob wilson
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