The £100m facility will include: 15 full-size pitches, two half-size pitches, all with undersoil heating and floodlights; A 7,000-seat mini-stadium; facilities capable of training 400 young players, with an education centre for 200 more; accommodation for up to 40 youth players and a 5.5-acre area reserved for community use including a sixth-form college and swimming pool.
Elsewhere in the F.A Youth Cup, fans with a vested interest in their club’s financial future, or hopes of seeing boys become men for the first team, saw Charlton, Burnley and Southampton all secure comfortable 7-0 victories. Blackburn Rovers gave their club something to smile about, flattening Thurrock’s u18s 8-0; Curtis Haley and Osaya Osawe both record braces.
Last year’s winners, Machester United, beat Torquay 4-0 at home, however arguably the most impressive victory was Southampton’s third round cup-tie, which pitted them against Under 18 Premier Academy League Group D Sheffield United, who were last year’s finalists, finishing runners-up to Manchester United.
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Southampton’s famed academy, which currently boasts James Ward-Prowse, Jake Sinclair and Luke Shaw, and has Gareth Bale, Theo Walcott and Alex Chamberlain all to their list of graduates, secured a 7-0 victory on home turf against Sheffield United. Southampton, who sit 3 points adrift of Arsenal in Group A of the u18 leagues, were already 4-0 up at half-time, before adding a further three in the second half and former Southampton right-back, Jason Dodd, who manages the u18s, said of the result, “The pleasing thing is that they are showing people what we think they are capable of, and that is playing some decent football and scoring lots of goals.”
With Southampton currently sitting 3 points clear at the top of the Championship and Manchester City topping the Premier League by 2, the future looks bright for English football and its youth prospects, and with the introduction of the Elite Player Performance Plan, it may not be too long before the Premier League can boast homegrown talent as skilled and as vast as Barcelona’s La Mesia.
Which youth prospects are you excited about at your club and why?
Written by Jordan Florit for www.maycauseoffence.com/ For more articles visit my website or my Twitter @JordanFlorit
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The phrase “youth are our future” is one you often here and in football it really is the case for most football clubs striving to compete against the mega rich clubs. It is the only way most clubs survive by churning out future prospects to keep their original club financially surviving…just. Southampton is an excellent example…..when times got hard and the club was badly run under former chairman Rupert Lowe it was the likes of Theo Walcott, Gareth Bale that saved the club from complete financial ruin. Recently they have seen starlet Chamberlain sold to Arsenal for a club record fee. One could argue that Southampton did not need to sell Chamberlain as their financial future is safe under the Leiber family but every player has his price and the Leiber family are not Russian multi millionaires with nothing better to do than spend spend spend.
Southampton’s focus on youth is both excellent for the clubs financial future and will no doubt produce further Premiership stars of the future.