Academy that actually makes money

Your later post, together with West Park and Mike Hunt answers your own point.
Exeter is a lot to do with geography, quite simply they are in the middle of nowhere in football terms, too far to Bristol and Plymouth is not a big enough Club to make the sacrifice of travel twice a week. Torquay don't count. In short with any level of competence Exeter can take their pick.
Compare to West Yorks and the M62 and BCFC are in deep competition. I know or am aware of ten parents who take their kids to one of Leeds, Huddersfield or in two cases, Manchester and this has been the case for years. Going back 50 years to my sixth form time, one lad went to Burnley twice a week from Shipley so we loose out.
In my eyes an Academy wins every time against a Development squad, look at the failed experiment with Archie Christie. Lads brought in who failed elsewhere only to fail with us and pass into non-league or out of the game. Archie had all the Board to see the first game which had Nahki playing, he was awful. I personally saw three other games after that and only two players, Nahki (brought to us by Mark Ellis) and Ryan Tafazoli to my knowledge are still in League football, other than wonder kid Scott Brown who is at Peterhead. Mark Stewart is also playing in Scotland but he was an existing pro at the time. PP scrapped the idea as a drain on finance and it is.
Look at the Academy idea but if you go into it properly it is big money and feeder club status. Look at Colchester who upped their status from Cat 3 to Cat 2 three years ago at an extra cost of £800k per year, no money for the first team followed by relegation to L2 and now mid table, stuck!, just like Crewe. Why - because they can't compete with London or North West Clubs.
We are in the middle in geography and low in finance, my view would always be to go Academy with a good scouting system that catches McCall, Abbott, Jackson and the like when their existing Club is doubtful and whilst there is time as a 17 year old to come good.

Roger Owen.

 

True, and Exeter only have Steve Perryman

 

Your conclusion seems muddled Roger.

You advocate an Academy, yet have stated we can't compete geographically nor afford it.

You state a Development Squad failed, yet it allowed us to bring in Nahki, who's eventual transfer fee would have paid for many years of investment in a Dev Squad...

Surely a Development Squad is an investment to bring through 1 or 2 into pro-football (which is what happened with our Archie experiement), which is all it would take to break even and be self-funding, if not profitable.

Unfortunately in either case it takes time, patience and investment to deliver results. Not something modern football and the fans in particular are blessed with.

 

WINNER

 

Is I feel a little London bias there @Interested Bystander .

 

A successful first team would fund and academy and attract more players to it
Would a 15 year old sign for Bradford City or Manchester City !!!!
We have the whole thing upside down

 

He actually answers the point you think is "muddled" - have an academy - have young, local players, and then bring in 17 year olds that didn't quite make it at Leeds or Liverpool because there's still time for them to develop.

Bringing in 19/20 year olds that have failed isn't very likely to breed results. There will always be one or two exceptions, but what is the value of those one or two players compared to clinging on to a development squad of 15 or so failures?

Look at Archie's squad: one player made us money. Nahki Wells.

Look at the current squad: nobody has made us money, and only Robinson is legitimately first team-worthy, and his value is going to be nothing like Wells' value because Wells was a goalscorer and that's where all the money is.

Unless your development squad can guarantee a top quality goalscorer every year or two, you're going to lose money. Better to have an academy with VERY young players at a much lower cost than fart about with cast offs and failures who simply don't have time to come good.

 

Remind me again, ultimately where did Geoff’s spending leave us (and not just the six weeks of madness)

 

George Green?

 

Seem to remember in the not too distant past we signed this supa dupa striker from Hull, £300k plus wages. Major success as I recall, regular goalscoring record. Or may not fits either way,

 

No mate, Jon Butterfield.

 

There is more Man City scouts in West Yorkshire than Huddersfield, Bradford and L*%^>DS scouts.

 

What’s the odds on Edin Rahic becoming the next manager?

 

Purely on a temporary basis of course.

 

Doesn’t matter who’s in charge if Edin picks the team anyway

 

Too true Jay
Guiseley academy gone unbeaten all year and won the league playing good football
More scouts from across the country than you would believe from all divisions watching them
Will be some good players come out of that team