The Problem With Youth Today

By: ChesterBoy
Date: 18/08/2011

I HAVE just been reading an old thread from May this year about the state of the youth system at Grimsby and how they have sacked all the scouts. I think this will promote the search for local talent but one thing that you probably didn't know was that when the scouts were sacked all of the potential talent they scouted were also forgotten about.

One of these players being my son who at the time played for a Welsh premiership side (don't laugh). He was scouted by Dave McNish and had two trials for the youth team and was due to have a third trial and hopefully sign for Grimsby but when it hit the fan with the scouts and managers he was forgotten about and didn't even get a phone call to tell him. Now when you try to get hold of Adam Smith you just get fobbed off by the main switch board and if this is supposed to be the way forward then I can see our beloved team going out of the league all together.

Two Days Later: Following on from the article I did the other day about the state of the scouting/youth system. having spoken to Dave McNish about Grimsby's youth team he told me that he literally walked into another scouting job straight away at guess,....... Leicester City in the Championship who welcomed him with open arms, so if a big club like Leicester City are still using the tried and trusted way of scouting young players then why have Grimsby stopped it?

On another note, living up here in Chester my son has been on loan at Wrexham for their youth side (boo, hiss). Their Colliers Park training centre (3G astro turf) would put Cheapside in the shade as would their training methods. The good thing is that the first team train with the youth team, the bad thing is that I have stayed behind a few times to watch my son but really to watch the opposition and boys and girls. It's not good, they are and - I hate to say this - really, really good. The atmosphere has been really poor for the past few months as everyone thought that they were going into liquidation so morale was down (good for us) but now the local university has bought the club along with their fans and things are looking up for them so good look to them. I think every true football fan hates it when a club goes into liquidation, and anyway we wouldn't have anyone to take the p... out of.

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