Well as regards Ricky - the individual always has to take responsibility because despite a totally unhelpful system people can overcome every hurdle and succeed. But that means you only get those who have both talent and enough ego and drive not to really need other people to help them succeed ...... and if you threw them in the Queen's Park lake they'd probably come out dribbling a football. But they're the rarest of diamonds.
You have to recognise that certainly at our sort of club it is vanishingly unlikely we come up with a player who has all the talent, the skills, the vision, all the drive, is perfectly behaved, never gives up etc. They'll have weaknesses and I'm sure Ricky did, but he went from captaining the juniors and being the mainspring of that team to someone being farmed out in lower leagues. I can't believe all that was down to him alone ........ especially when we see other instances every season of players, who almost make it with us, but then we cast them aside. MAKING players should be our job. He had the raw material. WE had that. His brother Antonio's a nearly-made-it-pro' now playing in India, used to play for St Albans City ......... so Ricky knew the score. But we're the ones with the experience, he's the kid. Football fails young players all the time - look at the failure rate, if that were a normal academic course would anyone sign up?
Gary Caldwell chose to push Joe Rowley forward but refused to offer Ricky a minute in the worst team in our history. Was it random select? I suspect that at some point rightly or wrongly Ricky decided he was never going to get a proper chance. If he'd have been my lad I'd have said, show them what a bunch of idiots they are. Train harder than anyone, stay out on your own at the end, if they run up hill, you find a mountain, just keep doing more till they either kick you out for being a pain in the arse or put you in that team. I think he needed someone to believe in him, because he was short of self-belief.
You have to recognise that certainly at our sort of club it is vanishingly unlikely we come up with a player who has all the talent, the skills, the vision, all the drive, is perfectly behaved, never gives up etc. They'll have weaknesses and I'm sure Ricky did, but he went from captaining the juniors and being the mainspring of that team to someone being farmed out in lower leagues. I can't believe all that was down to him alone ........ especially when we see other instances every season of players, who almost make it with us, but then we cast them aside. MAKING players should be our job. He had the raw material. WE had that. His brother Antonio's a nearly-made-it-pro' now playing in India, used to play for St Albans City ......... so Ricky knew the score. But we're the ones with the experience, he's the kid. Football fails young players all the time - look at the failure rate, if that were a normal academic course would anyone sign up?
Gary Caldwell chose to push Joe Rowley forward but refused to offer Ricky a minute in the worst team in our history. Was it random select? I suspect that at some point rightly or wrongly Ricky decided he was never going to get a proper chance. If he'd have been my lad I'd have said, show them what a bunch of idiots they are. Train harder than anyone, stay out on your own at the end, if they run up hill, you find a mountain, just keep doing more till they either kick you out for being a pain in the arse or put you in that team. I think he needed someone to believe in him, because he was short of self-belief.