Seems like they have closed their academy. Can’t have been an easy decision but they must have weighed it up.

Personally for Pools I think they need to look at it, whether that is the structure, why first team managers sometimes seen reluctant to use them etc. But ultimately it may be a decision we have to make in the future.

[quote="congress_tart"]Seems like they have closed their academy. Can’t have been an easy decision but they must have weighed it up.

a lot will depend on the costs involved and what the club can make out of it regarding future first team players. some managers have had no interest in youth systems and prefer picking up others rejects when they get older. they have been successful going down this road. for me i,d follow the same road.

Probs be the first thing to close this summer if we survive this shit storm.

What does it cost and what do we get out of it?
I think academy’s are now financially untenable at clubs in the lower leagues. A good managerial team will pick up players regardless.

I can only think of Hawkins from our youth team and he's hardly set the world alight. If we can bring younger rejects from bigger clubs such as Oates I can't see where the benefit is in having one, let the kids play for local teams and prove themselves. Spend some of the money saved making sure we're scouting the local teams properly instead.

Richardson has potential but has spent a lot of this season injured and there's still no word on when he'll be back.

If the measure of the success of an Academy is selling on players that are developed there, I'm not sure much of a case can be made for the Pools Academy.

Luke James joined the Academy over 10 years ago and was sold for £500,000. Connor Simpson was sold this season for a tenth of that. Have I missed anybody?

So Pools (or rather the owners) have had a return on investment of £50k -£55k a year in the last decade. Without subsidy from TV money, that's not sustainable where we are now.