Feb 21, 2021
But first team football is a long way off, so keep your career options open.
Retained!
Well, we have just had the U16 retain-release chat with our club. A verbal and written offer to retain our son has been made.
But let’s go back to when our son was nine years old when he moved from the development squad. At the parents meeting, we were terribly excited about are child being taken into the academy but we were given a reality check by the head of child welfare and education. He spelt out the probability of children going on to make it as a professional footballer was very small. He said our first priority should be to maintain a focus on education. In fact, our priorities should be family and friends, education and football – in that order. This has been said repeatedly every year at every parents meeting.
No matter how often we were reminded about the likely outcome, as a parent you always approach every retain/release decision point with a mixed sense of hope and apprehension, knowing this may be the moment you have to help your son manage disappointment and motivate them to remain focused on school work.
Now back to the present time and we have concluded two Zoom meetings and a separate phone call with the club over the past week and half. One of the meetings was attended by four members of staff which is no mean feat considering some of the club’s staff had been furloughed. Much of the meeting time was focused on education during the club’s apprenticeship scheme and the welfare of our son, when he moves into digs with another family. We had prepared 22 questions that we sent to the club in advance of the meeting that were all addressed. This gave the club plenty of time to formulate detailed answers in time for the meeting.
Once again it was pointed out by the club that the odds of making it through to playing at first team level are small and we were asked to continue to plan for life outside of the club in the short-term but also life after a playing career. Don’t for one minute think all the upsides weren’t laid out before us - they were. The club has a strong history of taking players into the first team but I’d say the pitch to us was definitely balanced with reality.
The academy manager said, he’s often accused of being negative. I’d say he’s been honest and transparent with parents and their children which in my opinion is the right thing to do. In conclusion I’d say this is the benchmark all clubs should aspire to reach and it’s one of the main reasons we bought into this academy at a time when others were interested in our son.
The club’s proposition to parents right at the beginning of the academy journey was rather modest and admitted they didn’t have a dome and multiple 3G pitches but what they had was approachable, dedicated staff. A coaching team who engaged and worked with parents. This seems to be a far cry from stories told by parents of children who arrived from Category 1 academies.
They described their experience of Category 1 coaching staff as being distant, if not aloof at times. This may be the result of a coaches own individual mannerisms not necessarily club policy and culture. The main difference, I’ve observed between the different academy systems, is the sheer volume of children being processed through the system at any one time which must inherently lend itself to a more direct style of communication between the club and parents. There simply isn’t the time to hand hold parents.
We found the day-to-day coaches at a Category 1 club (at development level) to be very approachable and readily gave feedback on progress but the guys who actually make the decisions and communicate them to parents position themselves at arm’s length, so this might explain the dissatisfaction.
Of course, all the while you are still on the academy journey, none of this matters too much. It tends to become more of an issue if you are pointed towards the exit door, which is fair enough because we are just humans trying to manage our emotions.
Well, we have just had the U16 retain-release chat with our club. A verbal and written offer to retain our son has been made.
But let’s go back to when our son was nine years old when he moved from the development squad. At the parents meeting, we were terribly excited about are child being taken into the academy but we were given a reality check by the head of child welfare and education. He spelt out the probability of children going on to make it as a professional footballer was very small. He said our first priority should be to maintain a focus on education. In fact, our priorities should be family and friends, education and football – in that order. This has been said repeatedly every year at every parents meeting.
No matter how often we were reminded about the likely outcome, as a parent you always approach every retain/release decision point with a mixed sense of hope and apprehension, knowing this may be the moment you have to help your son manage disappointment and motivate them to remain focused on school work.
Now back to the present time and we have concluded two Zoom meetings and a separate phone call with the club over the past week and half. One of the meetings was attended by four members of staff which is no mean feat considering some of the club’s staff had been furloughed. Much of the meeting time was focused on education during the club’s apprenticeship scheme and the welfare of our son, when he moves into digs with another family. We had prepared 22 questions that we sent to the club in advance of the meeting that were all addressed. This gave the club plenty of time to formulate detailed answers in time for the meeting.
Once again it was pointed out by the club that the odds of making it through to playing at first team level are small and we were asked to continue to plan for life outside of the club in the short-term but also life after a playing career. Don’t for one minute think all the upsides weren’t laid out before us - they were. The club has a strong history of taking players into the first team but I’d say the pitch to us was definitely balanced with reality.
The academy manager said, he’s often accused of being negative. I’d say he’s been honest and transparent with parents and their children which in my opinion is the right thing to do. In conclusion I’d say this is the benchmark all clubs should aspire to reach and it’s one of the main reasons we bought into this academy at a time when others were interested in our son.
The club’s proposition to parents right at the beginning of the academy journey was rather modest and admitted they didn’t have a dome and multiple 3G pitches but what they had was approachable, dedicated staff. A coaching team who engaged and worked with parents. This seems to be a far cry from stories told by parents of children who arrived from Category 1 academies.
They described their experience of Category 1 coaching staff as being distant, if not aloof at times. This may be the result of a coaches own individual mannerisms not necessarily club policy and culture. The main difference, I’ve observed between the different academy systems, is the sheer volume of children being processed through the system at any one time which must inherently lend itself to a more direct style of communication between the club and parents. There simply isn’t the time to hand hold parents.
We found the day-to-day coaches at a Category 1 club (at development level) to be very approachable and readily gave feedback on progress but the guys who actually make the decisions and communicate them to parents position themselves at arm’s length, so this might explain the dissatisfaction.
Of course, all the while you are still on the academy journey, none of this matters too much. It tends to become more of an issue if you are pointed towards the exit door, which is fair enough because we are just humans trying to manage our emotions.
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