Barnsley FC To Invest in youth, is it the right way or a waste of time

Article by Chris Hawden

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Danny Wilson is a man on a mission, a manager who clearly wants to mould a young team, that can get better and better by playing together for a number of years.

The ambition being to have moulded a winning youthful vibrant exciting team.

We have recruited well this season with the likes of highly rated youngsters, Reece Brown, Luke Berry, Conor Hourihane, Sam Winnall, Kane Hemmings, Adam Davies and James Bailey.

Danny as looked to tie these guys to two or three year contracts, with the aim of keeping these players together so he can formulate a winning team around them.

However what of our own Academy products, does the future look rosy.

It may surprise a few people, but the history books say no, our own lads will not cut the mustard.

Now I'm not being pessimistic, but the facts are clear, whilst I've been watching Barnsley and I've followed the club since 1978.

Only approximately twenty players have come through our youth system and gone on to play for our first team fifty times or more.

That's twenty players in thirty six years, it's an awful stat and really brings realism into debate, are youth academy's worth the expense.

We have had some cracking young players in my time watching the reds, my personal favourite home grown players being, Mick McCarthy and Ian Banks from the tremendous team that plied there trade in the late 70s and early 80s.

Then in the mid 80s we had Steve Agnew now assistant manager at Hull and Carl Tiler who went from Barnsley to play for Brian Cloughs Nottingham Forest.

After that we waited until the 90s hit us before we once again found some greats, these greats were of course the nucleus of our promotion winning team that led us to the premier league in the 1996/1997 season.

They were of course, Nicky Eaden, Dave Watson, England's goalkeeping coach, Andy Liddell who went on to become a Wigan Athletic legend, followed by Adie Moses, Scott Jones and Chris Morgan.

Since that remarkable bunch of juniors we have had to wait an awful long time for some new top class youth talent.

The club has tried all sorts, we had a team of kids from New Zealand that included Rory Fallon, who made a nickname for being a ballerina as he seemed to dance around in the penalty box and his mate, fullback Dave Mulligan.

Anthony Kay, a Barnsley Born, midfielder /central defender played 197 times for the reds and was a reasonable player , he has had a decent career elsewhere since he departed the reds.

Jacob Butterfield flirted with stardom for the reds, before being sold to Norwich City.

But in reality we really have struggled to develop our own talent.

In recent seasons we have waited for the emergence of Reuben Nobel -Lazarus, Reuben made his debut 30th of September 2008 as a substitute for Simon Davys team against Ipswich, he is still recorded as the youngest player ever to play in the football league.

Sadly it seems that he his letting the opportunity to play professional football pass him buy, I don't know why, but he seems to have lost the enthusiasm, skill, pace and dedication from his game that once gifted him the chance to get his name in the record books.

He has been left out of most of the recent match day squads and unless he wakes up and smells the coffee quickly I'm sure we will see him leave the club.

Other potential starlets have been shown the door, Danny Rose a fans favourite , has taken up the chance to join Bury, and Jordan Clark, is apparently playing well for Micky Mellon's Shrewsbury.

In respect of Danny Rose, good luck to him, I hope he does prove our club wrong for letting him go, four goals in four starts for Bury suggest we have dropped a clanger.

Paul Digby seems to have lost his way due to countless injury issues, I hope he can get his mojo back and prove he is the talent we hoped he would be.

So what next, new kids on the block currently include Brad Abbott, who has been given the opportunity to cover for the injured James Bailey.

He has shown glimpses of a player who may well flourish into a reds regular and 16 year old James Bree as not looked out of place in his cameos at fullback or right midfield.

Strikers George Marris , Nana Boakye- Yiadom and Rhys Oates are well down the pecking order, but it's a game of patience and chance, they need to take their chances when they arrive and realise first and foremost they have not made it as a professional footballer until they have 100 caps minimum.

To finish off its not all doom and gloom, we have produced John Stones and David Hirst during my time as a fan.

David Hirst, to this day, remains my favourite player of all time for the reds, he only played 29 times and scored 9 goals, but wow, he was an exciting player to watch, unbelievable pace with a hell of a shot from his trusted left peg, every time he received the ball, I thought he would create or score a goal.

The usual applied though sold and to Wednesday at that.

Oh and what of the ones we let walk away, Chelsea Legend David Speedie and Johnny Parkin.

So it's not all bad.

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