Football may be the
national game and the Barclays Premiership may be the
most commercially successful league in the world, but in
tournament after tournament, the England team have been
a disappointment. Other countries cannot understand why
the home of football has not been more successful in
World Cups and European Championships.
One reason may be that English players are technically
inferior to their continental counterparts and, to try
to address the problem, Watford will today announce a
pioneering scheme that, if successful, is likely to be
adopted by many leading clubs.
Instead of attending
one of the academies or centres of excellence attached
to the top clubs, usually training a couple of evenings
a week after a full school day, from September, 35
selected Watford boys, aged 12 to 15, will attend a
local school, the Harefield Academy. Newly built at a
cost of £35 million, the academy will allow the boys to
play football for about four hours day as well as
undertake academic studies. Their day will end at about
6.15pm, when they will be taken home to their families.
Mark Warburton, the assistant academy manager for
Watford, said: “We are trying to ensure that the
youngsters don’t waste so much time in the travelling.
We are not just about producing better players. We are
out to give them a more rounded background so that they
are socially adept and technically gifted.”
Warburton, formerly a
successful businessman, is a Uefa A coach, who has
visited clubs such as PSV Eindhoven, Ajax, Valencia and
Sporting Lisbon to study their programmes. “Someone such
as Dennis Bergkamp [the former Arsenal and Holland
forward] is a prime model for us. Fluently skilled,
disciplined and respectful, he is also well-educated,”
Warburton said.
Nick Cox, the academy’s head of education, said: “What
we have tried to do is to construct a day which
increases the amount of contact time the boys have with
both football and their academic work. At the moment,
the system does not allow boys to excel either as
footballers or academically and it is also disruptive to
their family life. Now we can help them to become
professional footballers.
“However, we know the vast majority will not succeed, so
we have a plan B in place to ensure that they are
rounded individuals as well.”
The Harefield Academy has ideal facilities, including an
all-weather outdoor and indoor synthetic grass pitch.
The academy is also helping promising young athletes in
other sports. Lynn Gadd, the principal, said: “We are
already used to tailoring our curriculum to talented
sporting youngsters. If they go away for competitions or
training, we have established an online learning
scheme.”
Sir Trevor Brooking, the FA’s director of development,
has lamented the shortage of youngsters having “quality
time” with the ball and hopes that, eventually, the
scheme will embrace lower age groups because, by the
ages of 11 to 12, youngsters are playing 11-aside
matches, where there is a more pressured type of
football.
He is awaiting the Richard Lewis report, which is due
shortly, into the structure of youth football but is
encouraged by Watford’s initiative. “Unless we invest in
youngsters, as Watford are doing, we will not be
producing players at the age of 16 who can challenge for
places at Premiership clubs,” Brooking said. “These
clubs are recruiting from all over the world.”
The average percentage of home-bred English first-team
players in the Premiership is 42 per cent, the lowest in
the top leagues in Europe, below that of Germany, with
45 per cent, and well below that of Italy, the World Cup
winners, with 74 per cent.
Watford’s scheme may begin the revolution. As Warburton
said: “It’s like the first sub four-minute mile. Once
the breakthrough occurs, everyone else follows.”
Catch question
Promising young players must live within a catchment
area of a maximum 90 minutes’ driving time of their club
At present, Watford’s academy players train two nights a
week after school and play matches on Sunday mornings
Travelling can be long, tiring, expensive and
problematic if parents struggle to get time off work or
are short of money
Inspired by continental models, Watford’s plan from
September is to integrate school work and football
training, transporting young players to and from a
single school with excellent sports facilities
The aim is to cut travelling time, reduce costs for
parents and increase the amount of football the children
play from about five hours a week to about 15 hours,
while maintaining educational standards
Source:
TimesOnline.com
