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Look at Wabbey!

Hawkeye Pierce

By Hawkeye Pierce
in Not the ETFC Forum

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Enfield United Newbie

Enfield United

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You need to ask yourselves then, how involved are the management team and that includes the board in giving our youth section the correct attention.

 

We are in the middle of one of the most successful Youth leagues in London, The Cheshunt League, forget the name, most of the clubs are from Enfield.

 

What policy do we have in bringing in the best local boys to our club when they reach 16ish?

 

I can vouch we have 5-6 very good academy level or ex academy boys playing for our U16's this season, have we begun highlighting these individuels and pointing them out as potentials? If so have the management team introduced themselves to these individuels explaining that they ought to stick around as they will be given as much opportunitys to progress as possible?

 

I know the management team are voluntary and put in many hours for the first team etc but If your gonna do the job right you need to make a percentage of time for the future as well, is 1 hour a month a lot?

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Out_Of_Towner Rookie

Out_Of_Towner

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Originally Posted By: Abu Dhabi
Up the top of the table. Same old players (no longer youth / lightweight) augmented with a few new faces. Respect to Bobby Ballard and his team! They have matured into a solid team who I fear will whip our backsides when given the opportunity.

Good to see Barrington Brotherton doing so well too!
But can they go up with the current Stadia ?
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theabbeyabbott Newbie

theabbeyabbott

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Nice reply Steph, no we only got one....and its ours. Yes we can go up, we only need one more turnstile (god knows why) and some more seats put in which we have......so whilst persons look on at the superficial aspects (like all the [****!!****] everywhere) the ground has the requirements to make the grade...take it or leave it.

 

PS Barrington is doing so well in the reserves........

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AbbeyMan Newbie

AbbeyMan

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Originally Posted By: Abu Dhabi
Up the top of the table. Same old players (no longer youth / lightweight) augmented with a few new faces. Respect to Bobby Ballard and his team! They have matured into a solid team who I fear will whip our backsides when given the opportunity.

Good to see Barrington Brotherton doing so well too!


Yep the nucleus of the 2004 Quadruple winning team - I won't mention the League Cup final - are playing and, as you say, they have most certainly "matured". It is also very pleasing to see the players that have/are progressing through the Youth ranks &/or reserves.

5495_thumb.jpg

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Enfield United Newbie

Enfield United

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Originally Posted By: Enfield United
You need to ask yourselves then, how involved are the management team and that includes the board in giving our youth section the correct attention.

We are in the middle of one of the most successful Youth leagues in London, The Cheshunt League, forget the name, most of the clubs are from Enfield.

What policy do we have in bringing in the best local boys to our club when they reach 16ish?

I can vouch we have 5-6 very good academy level or ex academy boys playing for our U16's this season, have we begun highlighting these individuels and pointing them out as potentials? If so have the management team introduced themselves to these individuels explaining that they ought to stick around as they will be given as much opportunitys to progress as possible?

I know the management team are voluntary and put in many hours for the first team etc but If your gonna do the job right you need to make a percentage of time for the future as well, is 1 hour a month a lot?



The fact that no one has come out and commented on the above shows either a lack of genuine interest within the Club of fantastic potential local talent or a degree of shame.

Our U16's have been playing together since the age of 9 and reached Cup final after cup final including County Finals. They've now joined the Eastern Alliance League losing their first game to Wingate 2-3 (due to not having all their players registered, but we wont expand on that, its embarrassing) and when at full strength, they beat a very good Romford side 3-0 away. The potential is within us, but the sr=tructure needs to be as well.

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Sponsor of Beer Newbie

Sponsor of Beer

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Originally Posted By: Enfield United
Originally Posted By: Enfield United
You need to ask yourselves then, how involved are the management team and that includes the board in giving our youth section the correct attention.

We are in the middle of one of the most successful Youth leagues in London, The Cheshunt League, forget the name, most of the clubs are from Enfield.

What policy do we have in bringing in the best local boys to our club when they reach 16ish?

I can vouch we have 5-6 very good academy level or ex academy boys playing for our U16's this season, have we begun highlighting these individuels and pointing them out as potentials? If so have the management team introduced themselves to these individuels explaining that they ought to stick around as they will be given as much opportunitys to progress as possible?

I know the management team are voluntary and put in many hours for the first team etc but If your gonna do the job right you need to make a percentage of time for the future as well, is 1 hour a month a lot?



The fact that no one has come out and commented on the above shows either a lack of genuine interest within the Club of fantastic potential local talent or a degree of shame.


I'm not sure that that is the right inference. As we know, Mike Smee is tasked with the club wide role, and Adam did for example watch the U-18's play the Capital League game at Billericay. I think it's probably understandable that Stewart has competing priorities at the moment!

I think the real route to heighten awareness will be achieved with the teams playing on the Downs pitch on Sundays.
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Sponsor of Beer Newbie

Sponsor of Beer

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I'm sure the U-11's played really well, but they really wold have had to go some to outshine last night's performance. To take an Croydon Athletics Academy side, generally all a year older and training together just about ever day, to penalties away from home in a game that didn't finished until almost 23:00 is a fine effort.

 

All of the players can rightly be very proud of their individual, and the team's, performance. They are a credit to themselves, and to ETFC.

 

And as for the tannoy announcer telling the Town bench to get off the pitch when Anthony Stockman equalised in the 120th minute- priceless!

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waggamick Newbie

waggamick

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Is there a 'Youth Policy' at ETFC?

I see we have processed around 30 players this season..a number of whom appear to have played at 4 or more clubs before their mid-twenties.

Is their a 'local product first' policy or is the gap between Under 18 and First Team football, at this level, so great?

You see more and more 16/17/18 year olds making their debuts at Top Level..is there a reticence to promote promising younger players at the RN(1) level?

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Enfield United Newbie

Enfield United

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If there is an area to criticise ETFC is the lack of policy and attention towards the youth set up. But this may from a lack of finance.

 

We have a very good local youth league and a decent boys club from U7's upwards, all of which is run voluntarily, so imagine 10-11 boys teams = approx 150ish participants all running voluntarily and self financed by the parents of the boys with the odd bit of local business sponsorships if we are lucky.

 

The boys join from word of mouth and some hard work from a couple of youth committee members, we dont have an advertising budget etc to recruit, even though we currently have places for Year 2,3's and 4's to fill and also through contacts can offer kids an introduction to football from the age of 4.

 

The club needs to assist the youth section in my view, to try and tap into ways of getting in some funding i.e lottery money etc as the youth section do not seem to have any expertise in this area.

 

As for tapping up the local talent of 15-16 year olds, I believe we need a paid scout to watch our local boys in the local league and attract them to ETFC with the carrot of playing in the Eastern Alliance league, that way they wont go looking to play elsewhere. I can vouch there are many very talented boys who play in the Cheshunt league, Eccho league, Watford League and East London and Essex league, some names from those leagues include, J Terry, D Beckham, B Zamora just to mention 3.

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