With all the flak O'Shea, Fletcher and Richardson has copped over the recent week, I'm interested to find out from regular youth/reserve team watchers what their impressions were as they followed these players come up through the ranks before breaking into the first team.
The call for David Jones to help solve our midfield woes is intriguing when you consider that he's the same age as Fletcher, who was usually regarded as a class above Jones during his youth team years. Though it's worth noting that Nicky Butt was always more highly regarded then Beckham, G Neville and Scholes pre-1st team.
There was also a recent post by someone who wondered whether the way the current generation of youth players is impressing is any different from when the likes of Chadwick, Webber, Notman, Stewart seemed poised to be the new Beckhams/Giggs/Nevilles. This made me run through a rough list of youth players through the years since the Neville generation and see how they've matched not only our optimism about them back then, but also the perpetually hyped-up expectations we have for our youth system.
[I tend to remember the players according to their year of birth, and not the batch they had progressed through the ranks with. This is in no way a comprehensive list but just some notable names that we had hopes for]
1974: Paul Scholes, John O'Kane, Robbie Savage, Simon Davies, Colin McKe, Kevin Pilkington
1975: David Beckham, Nicky Butt, Gary Neville, Keith Gillespie, Chris Casper, Ben Thornley, Michael Appleton, Richard Irving, Graeme Tomlinson
1976: Terry Cooke (he looked hot shit in his early matches for the 1st team, didn't he?), Jovan Kirovski, David Johnson, Neil Mustoe, Ashley Westwood
1977: Phil Neville (England's answer to Christian Ziege!), Des Baker, Ronnie Wallwork, Grant Brebner, Jonathan Macken, Michael Clegg, Erik Nevland, Michael Twiss, Paul Teather
1978: John Curtis (England Youth captain, and everyone's hot tip to hit the big time), Philip Mulryne, Jamie Wood, Danny Higginbotham, David Brown, Nick Culkin
1979: Wesley Brown, Alex Notman, Mark Wilson, Jonathan Greening, David Healy, John Thorrington (This batch looked pretty good)
1980: Luke Chadwick (The new Terry Cooke, did really well at Antwerp), Lee Roche, Richard Wellens, George Clegg
1981: John O'Shea (Fans were comparing his performances to Alan Hansen), Danny Webber, Paul Rachubka, Michael Stewart, Kirk Hilton, Mark Lynch
1982: Alan Tate, Paul Tierney, Danny Pugh, Daniel Nardiello, Jimmy Davis (ah, fate), Bojan Djordjic, Marek Szmid
1983: Colin Heath, Ben Muirhead, David Fox, James Jowsey, John Cogger, Kalam Mooniaruck, Neil Wood (favourite with the Championship Manager types)
1984: Darren Fletcher, David Jones, Kieran Richardson, Mads Timm, Luke Steele, Eddie Johnson, Kenny Cooper, Ben Collett, Lee Sims, Lee Lawrence, David Poole
1985: Phillip Bardsley, Christopher Eagles (the new Luke Chadwick?), Ramon Calliste, Adam Eckersley, Phil Picken
1986: Jonathan Spector, Tommy Heaton, Sylvan Ebanks-Blake, Paul McShane, Markus Neumayr, Mark Howard, Tommy Lee, Richard Jones, Phil Marsh, Adrian Nevins (when did he leave the club?why?)
1987: Giuseppe Rossi, Gerard Pique, Floribert N'Galula, Lee Martin, Darron Gibson, Ryan Shawcross, Daniel Simpson, Michael Lea, Aaron Burns, Jami Puustinen, Kyle Moran, Lee Crockett, Sean Evans, Frazier Campbell
[I'll stop here]
1. Between the Giggs-Scholes-Nevilles (1973-75) generation and the 1984 group, only three players - Philip Neville (who pretty much progressed with his brother's batch), Wes Brown and John O'Shea can be said to have clinched a regular spot in the first team squad. In 2005, even if Phil was still around, not one of them would make it into our presumed best eleven (with all players fit). That's three players out of eight years of youth team players. Of course this period coincided with our glory years, so chances for progression into the first team was severely limited. David Healy's a regular N.Ireland starter, Jon Macken occasionally gets on the Man City bench, while Greening and Wallwork are regulars for WBA.
2. The 1984-1987 generation looks really good on paper. But if we see the 1973-75 revolution as a one-off miracle, then the rate of success we've had suggests we should lower our expectations. Even now the jury's still out on Fletcher and Richardson.
The call for David Jones to help solve our midfield woes is intriguing when you consider that he's the same age as Fletcher, who was usually regarded as a class above Jones during his youth team years. Though it's worth noting that Nicky Butt was always more highly regarded then Beckham, G Neville and Scholes pre-1st team.
There was also a recent post by someone who wondered whether the way the current generation of youth players is impressing is any different from when the likes of Chadwick, Webber, Notman, Stewart seemed poised to be the new Beckhams/Giggs/Nevilles. This made me run through a rough list of youth players through the years since the Neville generation and see how they've matched not only our optimism about them back then, but also the perpetually hyped-up expectations we have for our youth system.
[I tend to remember the players according to their year of birth, and not the batch they had progressed through the ranks with. This is in no way a comprehensive list but just some notable names that we had hopes for]
1974: Paul Scholes, John O'Kane, Robbie Savage, Simon Davies, Colin McKe, Kevin Pilkington
1975: David Beckham, Nicky Butt, Gary Neville, Keith Gillespie, Chris Casper, Ben Thornley, Michael Appleton, Richard Irving, Graeme Tomlinson
1976: Terry Cooke (he looked hot shit in his early matches for the 1st team, didn't he?), Jovan Kirovski, David Johnson, Neil Mustoe, Ashley Westwood
1977: Phil Neville (England's answer to Christian Ziege!), Des Baker, Ronnie Wallwork, Grant Brebner, Jonathan Macken, Michael Clegg, Erik Nevland, Michael Twiss, Paul Teather
1978: John Curtis (England Youth captain, and everyone's hot tip to hit the big time), Philip Mulryne, Jamie Wood, Danny Higginbotham, David Brown, Nick Culkin
1979: Wesley Brown, Alex Notman, Mark Wilson, Jonathan Greening, David Healy, John Thorrington (This batch looked pretty good)
1980: Luke Chadwick (The new Terry Cooke, did really well at Antwerp), Lee Roche, Richard Wellens, George Clegg
1981: John O'Shea (Fans were comparing his performances to Alan Hansen), Danny Webber, Paul Rachubka, Michael Stewart, Kirk Hilton, Mark Lynch
1982: Alan Tate, Paul Tierney, Danny Pugh, Daniel Nardiello, Jimmy Davis (ah, fate), Bojan Djordjic, Marek Szmid
1983: Colin Heath, Ben Muirhead, David Fox, James Jowsey, John Cogger, Kalam Mooniaruck, Neil Wood (favourite with the Championship Manager types)
1984: Darren Fletcher, David Jones, Kieran Richardson, Mads Timm, Luke Steele, Eddie Johnson, Kenny Cooper, Ben Collett, Lee Sims, Lee Lawrence, David Poole
1985: Phillip Bardsley, Christopher Eagles (the new Luke Chadwick?), Ramon Calliste, Adam Eckersley, Phil Picken
1986: Jonathan Spector, Tommy Heaton, Sylvan Ebanks-Blake, Paul McShane, Markus Neumayr, Mark Howard, Tommy Lee, Richard Jones, Phil Marsh, Adrian Nevins (when did he leave the club?why?)
1987: Giuseppe Rossi, Gerard Pique, Floribert N'Galula, Lee Martin, Darron Gibson, Ryan Shawcross, Daniel Simpson, Michael Lea, Aaron Burns, Jami Puustinen, Kyle Moran, Lee Crockett, Sean Evans, Frazier Campbell
[I'll stop here]
1. Between the Giggs-Scholes-Nevilles (1973-75) generation and the 1984 group, only three players - Philip Neville (who pretty much progressed with his brother's batch), Wes Brown and John O'Shea can be said to have clinched a regular spot in the first team squad. In 2005, even if Phil was still around, not one of them would make it into our presumed best eleven (with all players fit). That's three players out of eight years of youth team players. Of course this period coincided with our glory years, so chances for progression into the first team was severely limited. David Healy's a regular N.Ireland starter, Jon Macken occasionally gets on the Man City bench, while Greening and Wallwork are regulars for WBA.
2. The 1984-1987 generation looks really good on paper. But if we see the 1973-75 revolution as a one-off miracle, then the rate of success we've had suggests we should lower our expectations. Even now the jury's still out on Fletcher and Richardson.
Thanks for the infos!