The Stars Of The Future Enjoy A Night At An Academy
Feb 9th, 2017 by 'holic
My thanks to one of our own, the inimitable Ttg, for telling the story of his grandson’s goalscoring exploits against the Arsenal, no less. A wonderful insight into an evening and an opportunity never available to those of us of a certain age. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
I’ve spent a long time away from junior football. A very long time since it existed only in very rudimentary form when I was playing. Daughters didn’t get involved in football very much thirty years ago, and it is only now that I have grandsons who are learning to love the game as much as I do that I’ve had the pleasure of watching them play.
The facilities that they have are fantastic. Astroturf pitches, floodlights and footballs that fly through the air rather than drop like stone onto your head and proper, intelligent coaches who are teaching them to play with their heads up, taking a good first touch, looking for options and playing out from the back with the ball on the ground.
My eldest grandson Harry is just nine. He has been in love with football since he was able to kick one and when he was seven he spent a year in the Brighton pre-academy. When his time with Brighton came to an end, he began training with a local elite training squad to develop his skills. He is also playing with his friends and on Saturdays in a local team where one of the coaches took the local team to Wembley in the FA Vase. The coaching team show the boys how to keep their positions using drone footage.
It’s a far cry from the primitive conditions that many readers of this blog will be familiar with. I played for my primary school on cinder pitches that cut your legs to pieces if you went to ground and there was little in the way of proper coaching.
My grandsons, Harry and his brother Oliver are football aficionados. Harry has been claimed by his father for the dark side, his brother by his mother to continue an Arsenal supporting tradition in my family that goes back amazingly over one hundred years when my grandfather used to watch the Arsenal at Woolwich.
Imagine then the general excitement when Harry was asked to play in a development match against Arsenal! His initial reluctance to soil his boots on the same pitch as Arsenal players soon turned to excitement that if he played well one day he might be training with Alexis Sanchez, if we can get the Chilean magician to stay with us for that long! The evening was in fact a series of half hour development matches between the elite squad and the Arsenal development squad for lads of that age in Kent and Sussex. The pre-academy players train at Kidbrooke and there is huge competition for young talent.
Harry played as they do at his age in a half hour match. Seven a side on a half-size pitch with reduced size goals. The emphasis is on skill and movement and on this bitterly cold evening the love and loyalty of lots of devoted parents was stretched to the limit. For me it was a delight to see my grandson able to express his love for the game and not inconsiderable talent against representatives of the club I love. Although his brother had threatened to cheer for Arsenal, brotherly love won out and he joined me in wanting Arsenal to lose for the first time in my life – and lose they did.
Harry’s elite squad triumphed 7-0 against a Gunners team. It showed the importance of practising and training as a team. In the team Harry played in three of them play together on a Saturday and I think that helped give them an edge. Harry grabbed a hat-trick and played throughout intelligently and diligently with an attitude and skill level that made me very proud.
On the two other pitches the Arsenal teams proved rather more successful but it was clear to me that at this very early level professional clubs hoover up any shred of talent that they can find. The Arsenal coaches resplendent in very natty tracksuits weren’t unnecessarily harsh on their charges but it was fairly obvious that if we were watching any future football prodigies they weren’t on the Arsenal side.
As the games ended I congratulated a rightly elated Harry and his mates and congratulated one of the Arsenal keepers for an immensely brave double save which would not have flattered Bob Wilson in his heyday. His Mum looked up eyes aglow and asked me which club I was with. ‘Arsenal’, I said, for sixty years! She looked deflated hoping that he might have got a counter offer from one of the many clubs that fish in this teeming pool of talent.
It’s a tough world for lads dreaming of a career in football but ’twas ever thus. But one young man slept contentedly last night, a hat-trick under his belt, in love with the game and enjoying it for its own sake. How delighted I was to see him relish his evening. What a wonderful opportunity it was, for us all.
Ttg
44 Responses to “The Stars Of The Future Enjoy A Night At An Academy”
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nice one m’lud
.
oh for the days indeed
all weather pitches
zombies hobbling off
flesh hanging from legs hands and elbows
all mercifully grateful for zero hovering temperatures
a numbness that wouldn’t last
and
a pair o trousers that bloody bonded on the bus home
.
kids nowadays , eh ?
hopefully not as bitter as me
the lucky sods
?
CBA
And you tell kids that nowadays and they don’t bloody believe ya. I regularly had my head detached on a Saturday morning on Tooting Bec Common and lost at least three limbs during my junior career. I got whacks harder than Hector Bellerin’s from our coach just for being out of position! We were men, or at least boys in those days
ps
well in , me
.
?
and
what the mighty thunder T said at 2
.
yes indeed !
Great article TTG. Sign him up I say.
On a day when the FA is officially declared broken, let’s hope more money gets down to grass roots to support this sort of development.
Probably wants to be like his namesake Harry Kane. The values kids have these days.
bt8 – that could of course mean he swaps blue for red one day as harry kane did red for blue. one of our own?
BT8
Sadly you are absolutely correct. Very concerned when the photo of Harry Kane in Arsenal kit surfaced!
cba first. Well I never! 🙂
Ttg, thanks again. I love this account. 🙂
1st ?
yer point being ?
.
i resemble the incineration
that
i am in carpool
of such
a cheese meant
.
*sticks tongue out*
armpit fart noises a given !
.
*stares*
You lookin’ at me?
Are you lookin’ at me? 🙂
*swoooooooooons*
Ttg: Just such a heartwarming read. The very best of luck to your grandson, and may his head eventually be turned in the right direction.
I remember at his age waiting for the local milkman to arrive with the goal posts and nets on his milk float before we could play. And he had churns of milk lighter than the balls. Youngsters today, eh?
Mark, you, many of us in this bar would be delighted to manage half an hour on a half sized pitch these days, though we would probably prefer a double, not half-sized goal.
cba: You are always first in all our thoughts. But then we are a worrying lot…
*71 double swoooooooooooooons*
TTG
Great account, made me smile as I know what it means for you I have to be up every Saturday morning with my lad who is 11 now (Holic not that little Oliver any more eating up your chips at the Holiday Inn in Reading). He plays for a local team Laurel Park FC, great bunch of kids and I tell you there is definitely talent there.
Apart from standing in the freezing cold at 8am in the morning I now have lino duties as far I was not abused by the opposition parents yet so I must be doing a swell job indeed.
Great stuff TTG. Heartwarming as Ned observes. The pure spirit of the game comes through in your account. We were all there once, even those who make it in the game but become mercenary, money-grabbing, honour-obsessed and self-centred. Good luck to young Harry. May his every dream come true and may he have a Damascene moment and realise that his grandfather knows best.
Lucky you, TTG. With both myself and daughter tardy in the reproduction stakes this grandad only welcomed his first (official) grandchild 9 months ago, so it will be a while yet before I can share your joy. Assuming young Jimmy harbours proper sporting goals, and doesn’t get seduced into Thugby and the All Black head trip, heaven forfend.
Also assuming I will still be compos mentis and not in a home for the bewildered when he is old enough.
A delightful piece TTG, and a pleasure to read amidst the angst currently pervading the forum.
*triple swoooooooooooons*
Apropos the angst, your link in the last round, bath, certainly put a lot of things in perspective. My view is that while we seem to be going nowhere in recent years I doubt changing the manager will change much in the short or medium term. However, the doubts surrounding AW’s future are at such a level that any player considering joining Arsenal may well be deterred by the uncertainty prevailing. This uncertainty needs to be resolved one way or the other. Either AW should sign another lengthy contract or announce his retirement in the summer. I have no strong opinion either way, but I do want the future made clearer to everyone, players, fans and potential transfers in and out.
Stop swoooooooooning, cba, you’re making a mess on the carpet.
*resolutely does not swoon*
Gotcha!
typical SUN “journalist”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Llg2i3-MXm4
Great stuff TTG!
😀
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/sport/sport-headlines/another-12-seasons-of-this-and-youre-fired-board-warns-wenger-20170210121905
Never has a spoof been so near the truth
Great stuff TTG, a wonderful report. Thankfully I’m through the 9am in the pouring rain games as countryman junior turns 18 in April. But they were wonderful years and I wouldn’t swap them for anything.
Great piece of writing there.
My daughter is playing for a local under 10’s girls team – very decent midfielder although she has missed last weekend’s game with “Wilshire ankle” – rest assured if she ever makes it to the Arsenal ladies team then I will be on here showing off. Allot.
A fine read, TTG and a long, long way from conditions prevailing during my heady days with Auchtermuchty Thistle.
Oh the joy of watching your dear ones play. The obvious euphoria of having him/her play the very game you love makes it even more special.
Talking of our game, yes elneny to start tomorrow although he is positionally naive at times. It is just a change for the sake of and more so because we need some refreshing to the team. I would drop cech as well and play Ospina.
Hull will come with the same plan as every other team who come to emirates do; play narrow, wait for them to commit and then the sucker punch on the counter. They also will have the crowd on their side if we do not score in the first 20 min or if we do not score 3 or more. Everyone is edgy and everyone thinks he is a pundit who knows what is wrong at the Arsenal. For once as the boss said, we need the crowd to back their team than come with an agenda of i said so or else the doom and gloom brigade will reign.
Re: Cynically posted link @27. Abou Diaby and Jack Wilshere’s sons? Not sure if they are born yet but wouldn’t Arsene need to stay past 2029 to get the full LANS effect out of them? 🙂
Feelgood factor nostalgia audiovisual aid:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkKJrOztXMw
Ear worm. Over 20 years old, this song 🙁
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qd-RGXPQGbQ
I predict a lot of empty seats tomorrow. Combination of 12.30pm kick off after a Friday night on the beer, the civil war, cold weather and the game being on TV.
We’ll be there though. Bacon butties at 9.30, on the road at 10.
howdy
fuck it’s cold
jeez
monkeys , welders etc
and
godspeed c100
hope i’m not being presumptuous
but looking forward to your report
an away day trojan
much respect , chief
UP THE ARSENAL !
Many thanks CBA. It’s snowing here in Cambridgeshire as I speak. Of course it’s a home game not an away day. I’ll jot a few thoughts down but there’s usually less to write about at a home game than on an away trip.
Are you going Holic? A day for hipflasks I think!
?
thought a 10 start was cutting it fine
?
Aye, I’ll be there c. Train from here at 8 in the morning. Forecast is 0 degrees and snow. Four degrees at the game. Long Johns day.
’bout the same as it will be here or even colder
***shivers***
Good playing weather but not so good spectating weather. Hip flasks indeed.
lovely story, ttg. congrats to hat-trick harry, even if his allegiance is misaligned. and congrats for having such a sweet-sounding family, gramps.
It’s preview time. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>