The Bluebirds Academy and DVP thread...

[the other bob wilson]

It is a disappointing stat that Swansea have won it 8 years in a row but it doesn't change the fact that they were heavy favourites on Sunday and by all accounts we were by far the better side until a ridiculous defensive error cost us the second goal.

To bring some perspective, Swansea had 6 u21s in their starting line up on Sunday while I think we had 3. Possibly our two strongest players who would be u19 are out on loan at Weston so are ineligible to play.

We also had a 15 year old in Sion Spence not only starting but by all accounts (according to mate who is a Jack) was the best player on the pitch!

Swansea played the lad Joe Rodon who has been in the first team squad and is the next big thing down there and as a club they have been in a position to pay £250k to Hull academy to take Daniel James off their hands as a 16 year old.

We can just about pay 250k for a first team player these days.

We all know that the club has been mismanaged in recent years and that the academy has been largely forgotten about by first team managers since Sam Hamman left to be fair but there are many reasons to be optimistic at the moment.

The u18s have got one or two players training with the first team and for the first team in a long time are in serious contention for getting into Warnock's squad.

Under them we have kids like Spence and Bowen and would have had Matondo but his departure was out of the clubs control.

I went to Treforest on Sunday and watched Cardiff's younger kids beat Swansea convincingly at u10s u12s and u13s level on Sunday and we had the best players on the pitch at all those levels on Sunday. Apparently the 9s won too and the u11s drew but a few of their better players were playing up for the u12s.

I know all these kids are way way off affecting the first team at present but it just highlights that as an academy we are still more than competing despite the amount of money and category one status and Swansea's scatter gun approach in the valleys at the moment.

We are in decent shape at youth level Bob and having read Warnock's biography I believe if the kids are good enough they'll get their chance.

You and Llandaff have seen more of our teams at below Under 16 level than I have Gringo, so I'm not in a position to argue with you on that score. I'd also say that, from what I've seen of the Under 16s this season, the praise they got from Russell Slade and Ken Choo in that meeting I attended early this year seems to be justified - their results are a lot better than we usually manage at that level and, more importantly, their performance level is consistently good.

So, there has to be a hope that they in the next season or two there will be enough members of the squad who will be able to bridge the gap between Under 16 and Under 18 football to the extent that we finally have an Under 18 team that can break the rut that we have been in ever since we gained Academy status in 2004.

I say this while accepting that results are far from the be all and end all in youth football. However, when every season I can recall for the Academy Under 18s has seen them losing a few more league games than they win as they finish something like sixth or seventh in a ten team league, there is a feeling that our teams have been much of a muchness at that level in the past twelve years. Initially, we were able to point at the likes of Ledley, Jerome, Gunter, Blake, Ramsey and Matthews and say that we were producing quality young players despite the ordinary results, but that's not happening any more and, as much as I slag the likes of Slade off for not giving youth a chance, it's too long now since I saw a player in the Under 18s (e.g. Ramsey and Matthews) who I just knew was going to play for our first team.

At various times over the past five years or so, I've heard about great results we've got at various age groups (I remember we scored eight against Chelsea didn't we at something like Under 11 level about three years ago), but season in, season out, I can say at the start of the season that our Under 18s will not have a player that appears in the first team, they will finish about sixth in their league, will go out pretty early in the FA Youth Cup and be beaten by the jacks in the Welsh Youth Cup and know I'm not going to be far wrong - hopefully, those currently qualified to play for our Under 16s will be able to break that mould.

Best of luck to your boy and his team in the Quarter Finals Llandaff .