Re: It doesn't get any better

By Swan (Swan fan)5/5/2019 18:17Sun May 5 18:17:26 2019In response to Re: It doesn't get any better

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I don't believe there was much engagement from the new owners of the club towards the academy when they first arrived and despite relying quite heavily on academy players as the season progressed not much enthusiasm to maintain the link appears to have been evident.

Perhaps the Owners have a plan to take full control and run an academy themselves thereby benefiting from the education funding per student directly rather than the previous model whereby Kingston College was the benificary and paid the associated costs e.g. training facility and so on.

Many clubs do have their Academy in house e.g. Hampton & Richmond, Met Police, Aldershot and Woking and effectively sub-contract out the academic education part of the course to a suitably qualified provider but provide the training and classroom facilities in order to do so and presumably benefit from some additional income as a result.

As John Blair said there is nothing to prevent registering players from the Junior club as they approach the appropriate age and field a team in the Bostik Youth League or Conference Football Alliance but in some cases the step up from Sunday youth football is quite large and can be very challenging. Near neighbours Ashford Town relied on doing just this for a number of seasons but unfortunately had to withdraw from the Bostik Youth League early in the season due to the difficulty in fielding a competitive team and some quite heavy defeats.

The other thing to bear in mind is that with several clubs in the immediate area running an official Academy the talent pool is very diluted and generally means that there is plenty of choice for those wishing to combine a further education and football coaching programme.

If the Owners are planning any sort of youth team set up you'd expect it to be announced very soon to enable recruitment having just lost something in the region of 60 players?