SUNDAY was a notable day for local players in the north west of England. At 1:30pm, Scouser Jon Flanagan was leading out Liverpool as captain for the first time. A few hours later an 18-year-old striker from Wythenshawe was scoring the winning goal in the Manchester Derby.
These players show there is still talent being produced in this country if managers are willing to give young lads an opportunity. It also shows that we live in an area that produces much more than most.
This is partly because of the rich history of local grassroots football clubs in the North West. Marcus Rashford (below) started not at Manchester United but Fletcher Moss Rangers in West Didsbury.
This small club’s incredible list of alumni also includes Wes Brown, Danny Welbeck, Ravel Morrison and current prospects at both Manchester clubs, including Tyler Blackett and Ashley Smith Brown. Clubs like Fletcher Moss Rangers are often the forgotten starting point for many of this country’s superstars, a fact often also ignored within the game itself.
As Fletcher Moss Rangers’ Academy Development Officer David Horrocks told us: “Certain senior people in the FA think grassroots football is schools of excellence and academies. You wonder where they think these kids come from originally. They think they are just transported to Carrington in the blink of an eye.”
Grassroots football starts much earlier than that. From a parent playing football with their child in the garden, to the kid dodging dog dirt practicing his skills in the park. David was rightly bullish about the “intrinsic” role football clubs like his play in a young person’s football and social development.
John Coleman, manager at League Two Accrington Stanley, has played and managed at every level along the way, including in schools. He believes grassroots football is vital to help children learn to love the game.
He told TAW: “Local clubs are often where the kids enjoyed playing football. They were playing with their mates. I think unfortunately the element of youngsters enjoying playing football is going. It’s becoming more of a chore or a job for them. When do you ever see kids organising a game of three-and-in on their own? Playing for the love of it.”
John also thinks too much academy football can be damaging for a young footballer, that grassroots football is where children learn how to be creative and think for themselves. He questions whether academies are producing rounded footballers who can compete and excel at all levels:
He added: “The problem that you’ve got is you’ve got an academy programme that teaches kids to play in a certain way, but only a small percentage of them will make the breakthrough.
“The rest of them have to go and play somewhere and they end up playing somewhere like League Two or the Conference and it’s a different sport. It’s akin to doing an apprenticeship as a plumber and then trying to get a job as an electrician. Something needs to be done about that — they need exposing to all different types of football.”
Based on this, it is no surprise to me that many who do make it have some experience in the more street-wise grassroots level. Be it at a club like Fletcher Moss, Jamie Carragher banging them in for Bootle Boys, or Steven Gerrard captaining Whiston Juniors as a youngster.
The question then is whether football is doing enough to protect these clubs that are such a rich source of players with the attitude and the will to succeed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8ChaciQKxg
Horrocks thinks not. He spoke of the £260million the FA have announced they are investing in grassroots football with frustration.
Much of this cash has been promised to develop pitches and facilities. But David thinks it will be very difficult for clubs like Fletcher Moss to access the pot of money because Manchester City Council make them lease their pitches season by season and funding applications want to see proof of “longevity”.
Fletcher Moss, like many clubs, are in a catch-22 situation. Without a long-term lease and a developed site they can’t access the funding they need to secure a long-term lease and develop a site. But should it need FA funding anyway when the Premier League is so awash with cash and so many Fletcher Moss graduates are earning millions from the game they learned on the fields of West Didsbury?
Horrocks would like to see rules introduced that mean grassroots clubs are fairly compensated by Premier League sides who use their players.
Pointing to the tax relief they could receive, he would also like to see the players themselves encouraged to donate wages each year to the clubs that started them on the pathway to success. Horrocks says those that keep the club running often speculate on what a month’s wage of just one of their famous graduates could do for their fortunes.
Horrocks hopes that the recent interest in his club will help secure their future and allow them to develop more future stars. But as he pointed out, there are 119,000 football teams in England all needing greater access to funding and support.
If we want to see more Scouse captains of Liverpool, it’s in our interest to help them in anyway we can.
Mmm if the desire to run through a brick wall for the club and an L postcode are tick box for being LFC captain then a lot of us are in the frame for the job. Other than that the academy isn’t fit for purpose.
Scouse captain’s of Liverpool? You mean German, right?
#sarcasmalert
“When do you ever see kids organising a game of three-and-in on their own? Playing for the love of it.”
That’s a competitive game and kids are now taught that competitive sport is bad. Much better when taking part is all that counts and everybody wins.
The Scousers we want to play for Liverpool, in ten years time, are already truanting. They are spending their days on the streets, fighting, robbing, kicking a ball about if they can get their hands on one. They are constantly looking for mischief/adventure and are ready to tax any soft lads that they encounter. By the age of 10, they are no longer children. Not in how they think and act.
There is a diminishing number of these boys. In the wider context that may be a good thing. In cities like Montevideo, Sao Paulo and Buenos Aires, there are armies of them. Some of them will end up playing for Liverpool.
This is what I find slightly depressing about the new cash coming into the game from the TV money and the instant comment that we can now afford to pay players more in wages to keep them. The West Ham chat on the coach home the case in point.
It’s a similar view that Ian Ayre trotted out prior to the walk out. He said The players will want more in wages, the agents will want more in fees and the clubs will want more in transfers. In effect what he said was the existing millionaires will want to be become richer and so on, keeping the new cash in a small structured circle.
It’s then easy for the fan to adopt the same mentality so Leicester / West Ham next season whats the mentality, carry on the brilliant scouting, squad building techniques we’ve shown over the last 12 to 18 months to then paying well over the odds to keep players on and then blowing a load in the transfer market.
The subsequent knock on effect is that the lion share of the new TV money ends up out the game in wages, fees and foreign club bank accounts.
Where are the infrastructure programs around the country where cash has been earmarked to make England the best in Europe for sports facilities. From 4G pitches across the country for grassroots to new changing facilities to new ground improvements, to better training facilities to a better match day experience.
There’s nothing to suggest that if West Ham and Leicester increase their average wages by 20% the traditional top 4-6 teams don’t do the same.
Grassroots football as a definition is in an increasingly grey area. We have the FA putting their best foot forward, implementing plans to improve coaching standards and in turn players playing ability, perversely this is causing a negative effect in many cases.
Pitches up and down the country carry coaches who have accrued an FA badge for “putting the cones out” or multiple badges for the more keen, they are suddenly the “knowledgeable one” Experts on their field, initialled gear with puffed out chests, above sticky out bellies. tactic boards, formations, fitness & diet regimes, for kids 7 years upwards, warm ups and warm downs, living the dream (the coaches dream) advising all at work and in the pub how the latest formation was a great success and the 7v0 nil win was all down to him. Thinking eventually he will get a mention on “This is your life”. when they all “make it” or an OBE for “services to football”.
Society and lifestyle changes are certainly not helping. Previous generations wanted to be footballers because its what they loved to do. The spectre of money BIG money and enormous fame has just as much pull today.
What is the answer, there are probably many. Schools world wide will have playgrounds full of kids playing football freely with uneven sides and uneven goals, kids enjoying themselves no formations no tactics just playing.
Kids enjoyment is being throttled, the fun, the thrill of playing “finals” or “spot” with your mates the “3&in” day long matches, that “Tardelli” moment taken away by adults who should know better.
Training sessions from our friends the “special ones” tend to take this element away, You wont find a kick about on an FA course or its website or in the plethora of on-line “coaches manuals”
Grassroots needs to take itself far less seriously forget about the pots of gold, the academy invites, the scouts lurking in the corner, remember kids like playing footy, let them play
Paul
“a knowledgeable one” !