if Brown and Foley are the best strikers we have unearthed since Adam Boyd (who first played for Pools FIVE years ago), it seems to me that the present people in charge of talent spotting are farking useless. Which other players have been produced in the same time period? Let's see... Matty Robson, Craddock, Brackstone, Turnbull, Maidens, Istead etc etc NONE OF THEM UP TO SCRATCH. Youth system is now a bag of shite. Where are the Tommy Millers, Adam Boyds and Graeme Lees? Don't mention Sweeney - one season wonder. IOR should now be really examining where their money is going into this side of the club, and if they are getting VFM. If it was such a roaring success, why did Scott go out and get those players last season in the first place, and why are we desperately scrabbling around for a new striker, left back and right midfielder?
Answers on a postcard to the usual address.

James Brown has 2 goals in 3 starts for Pools and has generally impressed me. Add this to his fantastic performances pre season and its clear that once we sort a partner for him and some proper service we have a fantastic player

Perhaps these players don't reach their said potential because people expect too much too soon and are early to criticise when they don't score 3 hat-tricks every match....

You answered your own question. Boyd first played five years ago. He started scoring regularly two years ago. Until then nearly everyone wanted to ship him off to Boston.
Very few of the players you mention have been given three years to prove their worth.

SO FOR FOOK'S SAKE GET A GRIP PARMO!!

Foley look sharpe when he came on for Porter against Torquay and he'll get bigger and stronger and uglier. Have faith. Cooper thought he was good so he must be.

Foley looks no stronger than when he made his debut against Port Vale and has done fuck all since then, that was about 3 years ago to the day.

Another player who is sadly using up resources that could be better spent.

he is good
i dont go along with this too short guf
get him in and give him a run of games he will get goals

Some good points there Chip. My main angst with the youth setup is the feeling general pattern that the best youth team players HAVE to be kept on. This shouldn't be the case, players should be kept on if its believed they are going to be of high enough standard.

and he is??

Jermaine Easter I would think

Jermaine Easter?

I remember those days, the Millhouse went mental at him against Macclesfield after he missed an open net.

my point is not about getting on players' backs at all. My point is that we have been giving out contracts to players who aren't good enough. Why (until Brown emerged)haven't we found any young players who actually look like striking terror into the hearts of the opposition? It is the usual case of "I'll make this lad a good player" attitude of people like Martin Scott over the years which has led to this. You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. Put it this way, if Crewe Alexandra can keep producing good young players who become GOOD FIRST TEAM players - with Pools' financial backing at the level we play at, we should be getting good quality kids to come to the club. But it's obviously not been happening.

More than once!

I went that day, I was burning, burning with . It was also the only game I know where tickets were printed on white slips and not on the picture of the stadium

Let's play Devils advocate....... is a youth set up worth the effort. It's not cheap and could the resources used be better invested. OK, we have the possible income from sales, but the problem then is, we don't see the best of a player because if the player has any real talent they're sold. the whole set up is a self serving cycle. Now if we'd kept the talent we'd sold over the years, that would have made sense and produced some team The idea that home produced players are somehow more loyal is another myth, they soon want to be away to 'fulfill their potential at a higher level' when the big clubs come calling, mind you they always say thanks as they go
Why not learn from the clubs in the lower leagues that are successful and see what methods they employ. Might it be that we'd be better served looking at non league football and getting a product that's got some more prospect of making the step up...?

I hope those two do make it, otherwise the last real good 'uns produced are still the three I mentioned on the other page - Boyd, Miller and Lee.

for a club like Pools we probably need three or four home-produced players, two or three decent low-cost signings (I don't care if they come from non-league) plus three or four long-standing established seasoned pros in the team.
At the moment, we are not producing enough from the first category, we made atrocious signings last season for the second category and the third category haven't been producing the goods for us any more ( maybe they should have been getting replaced one at a time over the past two years to get a smoother transition to the Willie Bollands of this world)

but apart from all that everything's alright like

The reality is that the vast vast majority of kids never make it in football - at our club and at every other club. Our issues are the same elsewhere. Some players need a break, to be kicked out, to make it at other clubs. Sometimes in life you need to fall down low to rise again.
Jermaine Easter was treated terribly its true. People are so quick to criticise, to shout down, to think they always know best, when the reality is, if they had two thousand people watching their every move at work, criticising, commenting, shouting at them, they would hardly find it easy either.
Personally I think Foley is an excellent prospect, lightning quick, good runs, has scored goals at all levels so far, and lots of them. We shouldnt be relying on him or Brown in this position though - that could harm them, that and the crowds reaction. An unpturn in our fortunes and a couple of goals for Foley and he'll be off and running (and scoring)

Our youth team output resulted in a team containing Boyd and Sweeney, who scored a huge proportion of the goals that allowed Poolies to enjoy their greatest day ever.
That day might be as good as it ever gets for us. And we'd probably never have had it without the youth policy.
So it has been worth it for that and that alone.

You might like to note that for varying reasons neither Boyd nor Sweeney were immediate successes.

In truth there simply isn't enough room at Pools to absorb the whole of the youth output. This was even truer at the end of last season due to the high number of senior professionals on the books. We have nonetheless managed to keep quite a few of those youths. There may be a future star among them and it's only by having them available that we'll find out.

So leave the fookin' youth policy alone right?

I'm not touching it (oo-er missus). I am asking ,"where are the reliable, quality first team footballers from it after four years"?

Maybe it could do with being trimmed down to concentrate on the more realistic prospects. Cloughie was sceptical of promising youngsters in academies, he said they were indoctrinated with the game from childhood and by the time they should have been making the grade they were burnt out. Football for them was the day job, not a passion.
To those who keep saying certain players are gonna make it, ask me afterwards, we've had loads of potential superstars, if we listened to the fans, but it appears other clubs didn't agree ...and that's what counts. As for being given time, sorry, you've got to seize your chance when it comes. THAT'S LIFE AND THAT'S FOOTBALL.