A time when young footballers were trusted.

[the other bob wilson]

another big difference would be the length of employment of managers. I'm not sure what the average tenure of a manager was then but I'm guessing 4 or 5 seasons? these days it is slightly under 18 months, so there is very little incentive for managers to bother bringing youth players through.

I think four or five years is too long - I’d say about half of that would be about right.

As for this game, the teams were managed by Terry Venables and Malcolm Allison and both were gone, for different reasons, within a year or so. Venables lasted four years, but Allison just the one.

I’m not sure finance would be a reason for not selecting a youngster these days because if a teenager could establish themselves in the first team, they would get an awful lot of money for him if they decided to sell given the way the market is these days.