[spireitematt]

Also it turns out we let Alex Render go and he now plays for Ilkeston but the club never said anything or announced it.

[Devongone]

Thanks Matt I'd missed that announcement ………… that didn't happen, so I assumed he had suffered some form of RENDition.

We seem to be deliberately in the business of producing young players to play at around that kind of level for their entire career. Now that could be just how good they actually were in the first place …….. or it could be that it represents exactly the level we train them to.

We choose our most promising juniors, we give them contracts which surely are intended to be the bridge they cross to first team football. At that point they are already good enough for Sheffield, Ilkeston, Staveley and Handsworth AND because we have nowhere for them to develop with us, we send them to those sorts of clubs and they never take a step forward. At best they become a Jacob Hazel or a Wiggins-Thomas. AND we do it over and over again.

Joe Rowley is the only one who in recent years has been a decent chance to make the transition and sadly it appears to be going wrong in his case too. But it remains highly unlikely any player can make the jump to first-team football if the most they will ever get is a few minutes off the bench at 3-0 down.

So we end up in a situation in which we have no money with which to "source" new players and yet invest money in developing youngsters to a level at which they can only play for us if we descend the pyramid even further.

[spireitematt]

Thanks Matt I'd missed that announcement ………… that didn't happen, so I assumed he had suffered some form of RENDition.

We seem to be deliberately in the business of producing young players to play at around that kind of level for their entire career. Now that could be just how good they actually were in the first place …….. or it could be that it represents exactly the level we train them to.

We choose our most promising juniors, we give them contracts which surely are intended to be the bridge they cross to first team football. At that point they are already good enough for Sheffield, Ilkeston, Staveley and Handsworth AND because we have nowhere for them to develop with us, we send them to those sorts of clubs and they never take a step forward. At best they become a Jacob Hazel or a Wiggins-Thomas. AND we do it over and over again.

Joe Rowley is the only one who in recent years has been a decent chance to make the transition and sadly it appears to be going wrong in his case too. But it remains highly unlikely any player can make the jump to first-team football if the most they will ever get is a few minutes off the bench at 3-0 down.

So we end up in a situation in which we have no money with which to "source" new players and yet invest money in developing youngsters to a level at which they can only play for us if we descend the pyramid even further.

I only found it because it was on Bob's Board and there was a link to the Ilkeston newspaper website.

[Devongone]

We don't know where Ilkeston is anyway as was evident when Che Adams was their centre forward. We were one of the few clubs not watching him.

[spireitematt]

We don't know where Ilkeston is anyway as was evident when Che Adams was their centre forward. We were one of the few clubs not watching him.

I find it odd that we don't have someone watching clubs in Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire looking for players who could be the next Jamie Vardy.

[Devongone]

It's more criminal than odd!