Novelli86
Well-known member
My boy has been lucky enough to be picked up by Fleetwood Pre Academy. I don't massively enjoy watching him out a Fleetwood kit on every Sunday morning, but I'm proud he has impressed them enough to have been selected.
This is basically a system where players are picked up from 6 to 8 years old and trained in an environment similar to an academy with games in the same sort of environment. Players are also allowed to continue to play with their normal grassroots teams and no contracts are signed until they are at least 9 years old.
Players are scouted in the usual way and some of the players at both under 7 and under 8 level are unbelievable for their age.
Now onto my main point.
A couple of the players also train with the Blackpool pre academy, but all I have heard is how poor the set up is compared to Fleetwood. Clubs are asked to send their best players (because Blackpool don't fund scouts at that age) but this has resulted in a load of local coaches sending their own kids down instead of the best players.
Many players have left because it is so poor, but also whoever they employed to do the pre academy has apparently now being sacked for selling fake Blackpool FC training kits at £40 a pop.
This is obviously an Oyston hangover that needs curing, but I wonder how far down the list of jobs the lower age academy is and if it's wise to let Fleetwood snap up all the local talent when it's quite obvious watching the training and matches that there is going to be some very good local players we will miss out on.
With rules on how far kids are allowed to travel for training to academy teams, it has to be a priority to sort this out or risk our academy being left behind!
This is basically a system where players are picked up from 6 to 8 years old and trained in an environment similar to an academy with games in the same sort of environment. Players are also allowed to continue to play with their normal grassroots teams and no contracts are signed until they are at least 9 years old.
Players are scouted in the usual way and some of the players at both under 7 and under 8 level are unbelievable for their age.
Now onto my main point.
A couple of the players also train with the Blackpool pre academy, but all I have heard is how poor the set up is compared to Fleetwood. Clubs are asked to send their best players (because Blackpool don't fund scouts at that age) but this has resulted in a load of local coaches sending their own kids down instead of the best players.
Many players have left because it is so poor, but also whoever they employed to do the pre academy has apparently now being sacked for selling fake Blackpool FC training kits at £40 a pop.
This is obviously an Oyston hangover that needs curing, but I wonder how far down the list of jobs the lower age academy is and if it's wise to let Fleetwood snap up all the local talent when it's quite obvious watching the training and matches that there is going to be some very good local players we will miss out on.
With rules on how far kids are allowed to travel for training to academy teams, it has to be a priority to sort this out or risk our academy being left behind!
