Watched the game today at Maiden Castle with Mr.Horden v Notts County, 6-0 win and Alfie Steel was outstanding, bagged 4, as was Campbell Darcy in defence, need to be careful these two don't get poached by other clubs as they were standout.

They're on a very good run. Well done to Ian McGuckin and his lads.
Did Max Storey score? He's been in amongst the goals again.

Not sure who got the other goals tbh, one was a penalty.

flying those lads - yet again another league above opposition absolutely blown out the water ! credit to the team and coaches for sure !

id love for Pools to be finally able to bring through some real talent like you see Boro and Sunderland do ! about time we had 3/4 lads ready to be offered pro contracts and moved into mens team football. It also helps us on match days and probably would see us not resort to loaning in useless U21 players from other clubs who have no passion to be here !

Yes Max Storey scored another 3 yesterday!

we would be very lucky indeed to get 1 single player coming through to become a regular first teamer out of a single age group of players. you need to research on where are they now on all our youth players since joe grey made his debut and since he did we had to wait for stephenson who might become another. one thing in their favour is they may have a passion for the club and could do no worse than many stop gap U21,s we have seen. really a kid and his parents would need to be mad poolies to pick their home club if the boro or sunderland were sniffing about.

So surely it's up to the Club to use the likes of Grey & Stephenson to speak to these lads & their parents & persuade them to choose Pools over the so called big boys.

I'm all for tying promising youngsters down with pro contracts, before the vultures begin circling especially But, if they aren't first team ready, the big question is can we afford it. Waiting maybe two or three seasons is a long time to be paying for little return, even though the kids might eventually be worth a lot of money.
Personally I think it is worth the gamble but it is not me having to finance it.

Fair point. You could go back a lot further than Grey and ask how many young lads Pools have released without offering pro contracts who went on to prove the club wrong? That's not to say none had the talent to make it - they need dedication and a bit of luck too to fulfil their dreams. Hope some in the current group of Academy players have the lot.

Darcy is under contract with the club until 2025, just checked. Forgot he'd been signed up at the same time as Stephenson, 2 or 3 others worth one too on the performances I've seen lately.

I know it's difficult for clubs at our level to throw that much investment into lads at that age.

Another financial gamble at this level that we probably cant do. Football for you !

but still as like any academy, how many Man Utd / Barca / Chelsea etc players make the first team and stay there.

Aslong as we can at least not do what we did with Murphy and Simpson and hold onto them. Average says one of those players may get to the first team or... another team at this level or below!

I think Darcy may find himself in pre season with the big lads and also Storey if he keeps scoring.

Darcy was already part of pre season with Askey's squad and I think got some minutes in the earlier games against Redcar etc. Would be good to either get a look at him towards the end of the season or see him go out on loan.
I'd imagine the pro contracts our academy players would get will be very low meaning 2/3 players would be the same as say a Manny Onarise etc. I'd rather we used our academy than bring in players like Aghatise, Brennan etc. so would quite like to see us tying down Steel and Storey (if they're good enough).

It turns out Steel and Storey got a hat-trick apiece - on the OS now.

"Hartlepool United Academy recorded an emphatic 6-0 win over Notts County on Tuesday afternoon in the EFL Youth Alliance, with both Alfie Steel and Max Storey grabbing hat-tricks."

If you’re not going to give your stand out young prospects a contract to retain their services, what is the point of an academy in the first place.
Nothings guaranteed in football or life itself, so you have to speculate to accumulate.

you really cannot give em more than a seasons contract as there will be others coming up behind them in the next age group. pools just cannot afford to have 40 odd young players on contracts just in case they have found a new jamie vardy. said it before for various reasons some of these lads are playing their best football in youth teams but never push on and even end up in the sunday league.

I’m not talking about keeping the entire year on contracts but an handful, 3 or 4 of the best prospects only

Problem is the big three sweep the area for as young as 8/9yr olds and we only get what’s left. As some one says if Boro,Sunderland come knocking on your door you don’t turn them down for Pools. All we can do is wish for late developers that they have missed. However at the end of the day very few make it.

but they all add up if you give em say 3 year contracts. at the end of three years we,d have double figures of these lads contracted. can never understand fans obsession with youth footballers as i have heard and seen reasons not to bother. will never forget the comment made by the notts county youth team manager back in the late 90,s when i officiated in a midland pro youth league. he said about his lads who were giants and second in the league at the time that none of em will make it but kept him in a job for another year.

I remember Cloughie saying he didn’t believe in youth teams/academy’s because when kids are training constantly from age 8 by the time they get into their teens they discover girls and football becomes a burden.

he is not the only one by a long way who said things like that and more. its even worse now with the clubs insistance on training well and diets all players have to follow. know i could not eat what they have to eat and would leave football for the most menial job just to avoid that.

But you're likely to take 3/4 players on as Snowy said on 2year pro deals. They get brought in on a 2 year scholarship initially so if you offer them a 2 year pro deal after this ends then you're likely to only have 8ish on initial pro contracts at any time which will all be very cheap. If they don't work out then you release the ones after their pro contract ends and replace them with the most promising from the batch 2 years after they started. You're not likely to have 40 pros on the books at any time, probably 30ish but as a club we've used/had 38 players on the books across this season so far, not far off the 40 young players you've quoted but a hell of a lot more expensive...

Problem is are they good enough. No good signing two or three a year just for the sake of it. Let’s be honest how many youths have Pools let go and progressed.

and it aint just pools either by a long way. just a breeding ground for future players well down the non league pyramid. they,ll be playing alongside youths who have been at premier league clubs also.

No one is suggesting any number, but if you did it would be 2/3 max.
You sign whoever you think is good enough, you may sign no one at all, it’s about getting the best or what’s the point of an academy?

is it a case like a lot of things in the game that everyone else has one so clubs just seem to have to follow any new trend no matter what those in charge actually feel about them.

The ‘academy’ label I find a bit over the top, a sort of upgrading of what was always known as the youth team, does what say on the packet.
It’s a bit like Sunderland when they got all gentrified and dumped their long standing club badge for a poncified coat of arms reminiscent of some gaudy banana republic …..keep it simple.

Look at like Chelsea loads of young kids then loan them out, a few seasons ago they had 30 out on loan, do big clubs sign prospective youngsters to stop the other clubs from signing them ?

More than likely, greedy buggers, gather the cream of the crops then throw overboard when surplus to requirements….and flood the market with kids with ego’s the size of the North Sea.

Yes they do.

Big clubs now have a ‘loan arranger’ working full time on loaning players out and keeping tabs on their development. You often see young players recalled owing to them not getting game time.

yet another back room appointment that clubs never had or thought about. next the premier league and the EFL will limit the number of backroom staff clubs have before its greater than the playing squad numbers.

Academies have their own training grounds and don't allow their lads to play for their school sides to avoid injuries. They're also meant to put a big emphasis on their players' normal educations - I imagine that varies a lot from club to club! And they have safeguarding policies and a safeguarding officer - someone to talk to if there's a nonce like Barry Bennell involved.

yes, and these kids end up as billy no mates in the end and other footballing kids at school relish it when they fail and come back to there school teams or under 18 when that happens. know all this from my lad and it takes many to get into their 20,s before they are accepted again. you cannot keep telling school mates you are playing for coventry or northampton when really you are only at their acadamy and expect them to be all over you because there isn,t much difference in their ability.

My grandson went to a birthday party where a game of footy was organised, he is 7 years old more interested in rugby. There was a kid there similar age running rings round everybody, he had already signed a contract with Newcastle Juniors or what ever the kids teams are called there.

Just wait till it all becomes even more like the American platform for academy sports.

its eye watering the level of professionalism that goes into college football over there.

even their 'football' is catching up

I had something similar when I was the only lad out of a class of 40 in my village junior school sent to grammar school. It wasn't that all the other lads were thick - the standard of teaching at the school was feckin' terrible!

Couldn’t one of the kids have fouled the budding super star to bring him down to Earth….literally?
Just a thought.

Couldn’t catch him !

when i was 7 i had trouble even kicking a ball and was one of the last to be picked when teams were chosen. about 11 something just seemed to happen more or less overnight that made me good enough to get trials at watford and halifax. possibly now i,d have been considered to old. how can anyone tell if a 7 year old will make the grade. its another case of ticking boxes to keep people employed by clubs.