Watford striker Brit Assombalonga recently became the 50th academy player to make his first team debut for the Hornets. This is a remarkable feat for the Championship side as they see on average 4 players per season make their first team debuts.
The Hertfordshire club’s current academy has been in place since 1998 and incorporates the clubs Harfield Academy. Unlike other football academies where pupils would train after their normal school day, the education and football programmes are intertwined.
Pupils must live within 90minutes of the academy and experience 16-20 hours of football training per week rather than the average of six at other football academies. This gives the academy players a huge advantage over other developing players and this is evident with players like Gavin Massey and Sean Murray who have both attracted the attention of premier league clubs.
Murray in particular looks set to follow in the footsteps of former academy graduates Ashley Young and Marvin Sordell by moving to Premier League clubs. The 18year old midfielder has recently picked up the Championship young player of the month award. The teenager has scored six goals since February and four goals in seven games in March have helped his Watford side to a fine run of form.
Last season 43 percent of all starts came from academy players and this year its 40 percent. Other clubs who struggle financially like Watford must look at the clubs ethos of developing young players.
Perhaps the biggest success from the academy is Ashley Young. After helping them to Premier League promotion in 2007, he was sold to Aston Villa for a fee of up to £9million and then later Manchester United for up to £20million which Watford received a percentage of. The winger has all but secured his seat on the plane to the 2012 European Championships in Poland and Ukraine.
The club don’t just look to develop their own young players. In the past the club have taken on loan players such as Jermaine Pennant, Jordan Mutch, Henri Lansbury and Tom Cleverly. Their time spent at Watford has helped to develop their careers with Cleverly pushing for a regular place in the Manchester United midfield as well as having one foot in the England squad.
With so much emphasis being made of having home-grown players, especially with the foreign influence in the English game, it looks like Watford has made significant success of producing quality footballers from within.
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Seems like that Watford has seen the light. Especially from a financial point of view – the future for smaller clubs is to developing young players, make them ready early and let them play early and then sell them. (C)Ashley Young is a fine example.
Ashley Young was sensible enough to stay at Watford long enough to develop into a £9m player. Unfortunately agents interfere and the temptation is for young players to move too soon to bigger clubs and miss out on the grounding and development, and first team football, that clubs like Watford can offer.