Tylluan Posted May 2, 2022 Share Posted May 2, 2022 Lifted this from my local free paper about an 8 year old lad trying to get into Notts County's academy system. "Frasier is 8 years old and has been playing up an age group with Eastwood Athletic FC under 9s this season. He's just completed a six week trial at Notts County and has just made the last 24 places after an initial intake of 80. He now has to complete another 3-4 month trial which will hopefully lead to a place in the top 12 intakes and sign his first ever contract. This is the first step on the ladder to hopefully becoming a professional footballer." Although they've a decent academy it's still a National League set up and 8 year olds are having to go through this. County hold semi open trials, in that your JFC has to nominate you and send in video clips to get a chance of being one of the 'lucky' 80 who start the process. They don't look at kids who just play for school. This is not an isolated process either. 8 year olds will go through 6-9 months of trials and training to be told they're not good enough. How will that make the kid feel? I'll not work with age groups lower than 13s as I think that's when they get a knowledge for football. I've seen kids overcoached and burnt out by they get to me and I have to reset their whole system. Academies at u12s downwards are just money making machines for the clubs. Kids will get just as good coaching joining a decent JFC and it'll probably cost half as much. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HoylandOwl Posted May 2, 2022 Share Posted May 2, 2022 Trials for MONTHS for an 8 year old? My god. the world of football is even more stupid than I knew Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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