City Youth Players ‘making’ it at Bradford City

Because anyone who's half decent is sold before they reach 16.

 

Danny Devine with 53 appearances in all comps seems to be the one to beat for recent years. Finn Cousin-Dawson has 40 in all comps, 34 of which are in the league.

Not sure what it is, but it seems guys like Devine, FCD & Staunton all played their best on their 1 year graduation pro deals, got a 2 or 3 year extension after 7 or 8 games and then just started falling away once the ink was dry. Every manager at every level rotates out his youth prospects. Even the top quality ones struggle to start all too often when they break in, as managers tend to try ease workloads and play to their young guys strengths. Seems like when ours in the past were rotated out, they struggled to get some form together to force their way back in or the team moves on past them.

 

Danny Devine made over 50 appearances but I think a lot of them were purely down to him being in the squad for club developed rules. Cousin-Dawson will have made most of his appearances in the behind closed doors season when he was first choice right back for a bit.
The problem we'll also have is that the best academy players are snatched off us by the Premier League clubs. Also recruiting players is harder with having the likes of Leeds and the 2 Manchester clubs close by, now with EPPP there's no 90 minute rule for the top clubs so they can take whoever they want. Even if our players make it to the scholar stage there's a huge gap from U18s to 1st team and we've got no link in between apart from local loans. There were probably 2 reasons McBurnie made it like he did, better coaching and time to develop. Players like Sykes-Kenworthy were rated highly but we struggled to get him game time to develop past U18s. With Pointon if his form drops we can't give him a break in the U23s to rediscover form and confidence so he could follow their path.
For me we need to invest in the academy to get it to category 2 then the players are playing against better quality teams and it makes it easier to attract and keep players.

 

There were others before those Rod , but a different era.
Dean Richards 92 , Bradford born, ex Rhodesway, first team debut 17 years old, sold to Wolves aged 21 for a total of £1.8m
Stuart came to City aged 15-16. On that basis I’d call him “homegrown” Released by Leeds before he was a teenager ( I think)
Bruce Stowell again released by Leeds as a youngster ( Bradford born) picked up by City as a mid teenager.

@Bronco Any more Dave?

Can’t think of any more in my time.

 

Lee Duxbury and Des Hamilton spring to mind.

 

As you say different era, most teams had 2/3 possibly more local lads in their ranks, Bruce Stowell, Bruce Bannister, Ian Cooper, Joe Cooke, Gary Watson, Brian Kelly, John Hall, Bobby Ham, Peter Jackson, Terry Dolan, Malcolm Devitt, Trevor Hockey who wasn't at the club long as he was a class act, so many mate, again you knew the starting 11 week in week out baring injuries.

 

Going back to the late 70s we had Peter Jackson, Barry Gallagher as well as before them Joe Cooke, Gary Watson and Ces Podd. In the 60s there was the schools Bradford boys team where we got Stowell, Bannister. It’s a shame now that we rarely get to see our promising youngsters as they are snapped up by the big clubs when they are 14/15 years old.

 

Did we not earn a good fee selling Ormonroyd to Aston Villa?

 

Cheers DennisI forgot the Thackly link

 

£650,000 at the time I believe Graham Taylor paid for Sticks, gob smacked was an understatement, he then went on to manage England but never capped Sticks .

 

Correct I miss read @Kevins post I posted Bradford/local lads who made the first team, and were regulars for the club.

 

And far younger I asked why living in Wibsey I'd heard nothing with regards Mason Greenwood a friend of mine who coaches at Wyke said Mason was snapped up at 8 years of age by Manchester United.

 

I read Martin Drury's comments on twitter regarding Bobby Pointons debut and that the lad had worked hard and was a late developer in terms of standing out, which kinda tells me why he's flown under the radar of the bigger clubs scanning the lower leagues for youth development players. Had he stood out at a younger age, say 13 or 14, he wouldn't still have been at Valley Parade.

 

The twin grandsons have been offered training positions at Ipswich Town …Aged 9!

 

Spot on. They will have looked at him for sure. Small, stocky, low centre of balance…..The opposite of a bandy legged kid! Good luck to him .