I absolutely agree grassroots action is vital Matt. We desperately need football fields and children out playing football ..... and adults out there doing it too ..... but structural changes to the pro' game are another pre-requisite because nobody emerges from pub football into the England team ..... even Jamie Vardy (he fought his way through a structure that made every attempt to stop him!)
My use of Torquay as an example was belittled, but the West Country might almost be an island so difficult is it to get a club to thrive. In the Bananarama, Torquay had to choose between a hotel for an over-nighter or a coach for the 228 mile trip to Boreham Wood. Now Barrow is 348 miles, Tranmere 277, Dover, 263, Gateshead 383 Wrexham 243, York 313, North Ferriby 310, Braintree 272, and I can't be arsed to look up Guiseley, Southport, Macclesfield, Chester ..... The West Country is always going to be where it is, but there is no need for the structure of football to take the piss. Impoverished clubs (Forest Green apart) are trying to get back in the league. Dagenham are top and they couldn't afford the league travel last season ...... Regionalisation is simply a must. Chesterfield is lucky with Division One at the moment, but we could get a season where Plymouth, Portsmouth, Colchester, Carlisle, Hartlepool, Yeovil, Newport, Exeter, Southend, and Gillingham joined us in whatever division .... the cost to team and supporter would be unsustainable and it is a system without gain within a BORING and OVERLONG structure.
The structure I suggest is massively favourable to US. Teams who should be against it are struggling Premiership teams and much of the Championship. If the game reformed to 5 simple divisions of 20, the re-organisation, unless it happened on one of our best seasons would put us in the FOURTH of the five divisions. Under my proposal every league club is no more than one step from the Championship, it may be a difficult step, but it is just one brilliant season. However, if the season ended now and we reorganised as I'd like, Huddersfield and Norwich would go up to the Premier, which would mean the bottom four from that division coming down to create the 18 Premiership and Championship teams ...... so relegation for unhappy Bournemouth, West Ham, Sunderland and Stoke. They'd be joined in the Championship by Scunthorpe and Bolton (promoted from Division One) and Newcastle all the way down to Wednesday in the current Championship. The really unhappy clubs joining us in the Conferences but making them very challenging would be Leeds, QPR, Burton, Villa, Preston, Derby, Rotherham, Wigan, Blackburn and Cardiff. They'd kick up a hell of a fuss, but they'd make our programme of 30 games far more exciting than our current 46 .... in my opinion.
For the future, we need to encourage young players to join the smaller clubs. We offer exciting opportunities. At the moment the top clubs cream off the best of the talent at a young age and throw England back a Marcus Rashford once every blue moon. The youth systems of our top clubs provided almost none of the England squad at the last Euros as I showed above. You go to Chelsea at 12 or so to be a star, by the time you are 20 you'll be lucky to be on Chesterfield's bench like Reece Mitchell .... but they had the pick! So we need more of the talent to choose Chesterfields as their future AND we need a way for top clubs to develop those brilliant boys you see at 17 in youth games, displaying real skills, into the players they could be instead of might've -beens by the age of nineteen.
Football is not like Rugby where playing against those physically stronger and older can damage youngsters. Playing against older, bigger kids and then men brings your game on leaps and bounds. You have to be better than them and quicker than them in body and mind. And we don't test young players like this at the moment. We've cottonwooled whole generations like Jack Wilshere; tackle him and he'll be out for the season, but look at him, this is a lad who should be strong, would've been strong ......
My use of Torquay as an example was belittled, but the West Country might almost be an island so difficult is it to get a club to thrive. In the Bananarama, Torquay had to choose between a hotel for an over-nighter or a coach for the 228 mile trip to Boreham Wood. Now Barrow is 348 miles, Tranmere 277, Dover, 263, Gateshead 383 Wrexham 243, York 313, North Ferriby 310, Braintree 272, and I can't be arsed to look up Guiseley, Southport, Macclesfield, Chester ..... The West Country is always going to be where it is, but there is no need for the structure of football to take the piss. Impoverished clubs (Forest Green apart) are trying to get back in the league. Dagenham are top and they couldn't afford the league travel last season ...... Regionalisation is simply a must. Chesterfield is lucky with Division One at the moment, but we could get a season where Plymouth, Portsmouth, Colchester, Carlisle, Hartlepool, Yeovil, Newport, Exeter, Southend, and Gillingham joined us in whatever division .... the cost to team and supporter would be unsustainable and it is a system without gain within a BORING and OVERLONG structure.
The structure I suggest is massively favourable to US. Teams who should be against it are struggling Premiership teams and much of the Championship. If the game reformed to 5 simple divisions of 20, the re-organisation, unless it happened on one of our best seasons would put us in the FOURTH of the five divisions. Under my proposal every league club is no more than one step from the Championship, it may be a difficult step, but it is just one brilliant season. However, if the season ended now and we reorganised as I'd like, Huddersfield and Norwich would go up to the Premier, which would mean the bottom four from that division coming down to create the 18 Premiership and Championship teams ...... so relegation for unhappy Bournemouth, West Ham, Sunderland and Stoke. They'd be joined in the Championship by Scunthorpe and Bolton (promoted from Division One) and Newcastle all the way down to Wednesday in the current Championship. The really unhappy clubs joining us in the Conferences but making them very challenging would be Leeds, QPR, Burton, Villa, Preston, Derby, Rotherham, Wigan, Blackburn and Cardiff. They'd kick up a hell of a fuss, but they'd make our programme of 30 games far more exciting than our current 46 .... in my opinion.
For the future, we need to encourage young players to join the smaller clubs. We offer exciting opportunities. At the moment the top clubs cream off the best of the talent at a young age and throw England back a Marcus Rashford once every blue moon. The youth systems of our top clubs provided almost none of the England squad at the last Euros as I showed above. You go to Chelsea at 12 or so to be a star, by the time you are 20 you'll be lucky to be on Chesterfield's bench like Reece Mitchell .... but they had the pick! So we need more of the talent to choose Chesterfields as their future AND we need a way for top clubs to develop those brilliant boys you see at 17 in youth games, displaying real skills, into the players they could be instead of might've -beens by the age of nineteen.
Football is not like Rugby where playing against those physically stronger and older can damage youngsters. Playing against older, bigger kids and then men brings your game on leaps and bounds. You have to be better than them and quicker than them in body and mind. And we don't test young players like this at the moment. We've cottonwooled whole generations like Jack Wilshere; tackle him and he'll be out for the season, but look at him, this is a lad who should be strong, would've been strong ......