[quote="paulus the woodgnome and a side salad"]. If only one makes it out of 12 surely that's a bonus,
its a bloody fantastic bonus. bet every premier league club would be over the moon if that happened especially if they became regular first teamers and not non playing subs. one every 5 years would be more realistic with pools who either became a first team regular or moved away for a decent amount of money. remember speaking to the then notts county youth team manager in the late 90,s. his side were near the top of the youth team league. all their under 18 ,s were over 6ft tall apart from their keeper. on saying to him about the size of the lads he said something like yes, but non of em will make it, but they,ll keep me in a job for another year. just wonder if that type of attitude is still around with youth team players and managers at a lower level of the pro game.

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.squa ... ers/%3famp

You’ll have to copy and paste the link I’m afraid. football AM football skills challenges reviewed with a bit of where are they now. Some are England internationals, some aren’t unfortunately, e.g. Nathan Luscombe. Rare we have signed a player rejected by a bigger club who has gone on to achieve bigger and better things after pools?

Most clubs professionally run these days, probably still a few haven't moved with the times, I'll leave you to guess which clubs they might be. I just dislike the whole academy system concept , when applied to clubs lower down the scale.

Does that say more about the players or the club though?

you mean the system where they are signed up after just leaving the womb and then booted out at still a young age after years of telling their mates that they play for this club or the other. was bad enough in the old days being told at 18 you are not good enough never mind at 14 or possibly younger. some of these football mad kids could be scared for life by this and plenty turn their backs on the game.