Academy Football's
PLAN B

Tony Pulis

Very few people are as experienced in football as Tony Pulis; over 400 games as a player, 1,000+ games as a manager, a Premier League manager of the season award, and a lifetime of experience in the game. When someone like Tony talks, people listen.

 

Since leaving his last job in management at Sheffield Wednesday in 2020, Tony has finally had the time to investigate academy football’s structure and come up with a new proposal for the system. So where better to start than a trip to the legendary managers house?

“Academies have changed in the respect of how big it’s got. When I started there would be two or three apprentices taken on and you’d be put in with the pros straight away. There was no break from one side and the other.

 

“Now you’ve got a situation where there’s under-16s, under-18s, under-21s and those teams are full of YTS (Youth Training Scheme), or apprentices or scholars. A lot of those players might have been there since just six years of age and end up having more time in an academy system than they do in school.

 

“A lot of these players today need to be in place to run a games programme. Clubs have a full-time games programme, never mind a full-time training programme. You need the players there to play the games every week.”

We spoke as we sat at his kitchen table with a cup of tea, just a couple of hours before his grandchildren were due to come over for a beach walk. It’s one of these grandchildren, currently in a professional academy, which gave Tony some extra motivation to kickstart his investigation into academy setups.

When Tony, 66, started as a young player at Bristol Rovers, he was involved with the pros in the first team almost immediately. There was no such thing as an academy, just a handful of scholars, a reserves team and a first team, a clear pathway that seems to have been lost as the academy system has developed.

“My issue is the fact that we know the stats say most of the kids are not going to be professional footballers. So, what can we put in place along the way to help these kids when they’re told they’re not going to be good enough.”

 

Tony has drawn up a plan for a dual-scholarship programme funded by the Premier League but run by an independent body that focuses on preparation for an alternative career. The UK would then be divided into six regions with teams of mentors working with young players. Tony believes that this would create a ‘safety net’ within a system where children are taken on simply to make up the numbers. 

“All players in academies believe they’re going to be players, they all dream they’re going to be players, they all want to be players. The hard facts are that over 90% of those players will fall by the wayside.

 

“I keep saying it’s like when apples fall from the tree. We know the apples are going to fall every autumn, so can we put a safety net there to stop the apples falling off and smashing their heads on the ground? Can we put a safety net for the players who are rejected and told they’re not good enough, so that they have different areas and try and place them?”

 

Tony Pulis took his proposals to the Premier League in 2022 and told me that an outcome is still ongoing, but he’s hopeful they’ll take his plan on.

‘You’d be setting 99.9% up for a backup plan and that would take a lot of effort and a lot of money.’

To Carlisle fans, Jimmy Glass is a legend. The goalscoring goalkeeper has his unique place in football history by scoring a last-minute winner to save the club from relegation out of the Football League. After a journeyman playing career, Jimmy had ‘normal’ jobs such as a salesman and a taxi driver, before becoming AFC Bournemouth’s player liaison officer for eight years. Now, he’s Wimborne Town’s general manager, and has recently revamped the clubs academy setup.

“It’s very important at Wimborne [compared to a professional club] as it’s the education side that pays for the academy. In reality, the education side is an add-on even though I’m sure Tony told you different.”

 

Jimmy Glass and Tony Pulis are friends, having known each other since 1995 when Jimmy signed for Tony’s Gillingham side. So, what does he think of his former managers proposals?

 

“Tony is a smart guy who has spent his life in football. No one knows football better than Tony. What he’s saying will be essentially right.

 

“There are two ways to look at it; football needs to help these youngsters because it builds them up and creates expectation and hope but, generally speaking, they won’t make it through to the first team and get cut loose. What happens to them then should be thought about more.

 

“But by that time [they’re released] they’re 18-years-old and adults, the same way the schooling system might bring them all the way through, fail them and cut them loose at 18.

 

“In truth though you’d be setting 99.9% up for a backup plan and that would take a lot of effort and money. I doubt the clubs would be doing that themselves, so maybe it’s something the FA needs to look at and make the clubs adhere to.”

Jimmy, 51, is now using his wealth of experience to build Wimborne’s profile and develop its academy.

 

“The academy system is going well, and I think that represents the ideals of Wimborne Town, which is to be a wholesome, sustainable, community friendly club, where someone could come in at seven-years-old and come all the way through to play in our first team.

 

“My goals, and the boards goals, is to try and create two or three players a season that will go through the academy and into the pathway.”

The Future?

Despite being a shining star in the Cherries academy, Jonny Stuttle has thought about his future and has put plans into place. However, with clubs unable to force a backup plan upon those within the academy system, it’s unclear how many of the current crop of 10-12,000 academy players are in the same position as Jonny.

 

Current Premier League education guidelines require a minimum of a BTEC in sport, but clubs, like AFC Bournemouth actively do, can offer extra courses which are optional for players to take up. These extras build upon what players learn during their BTEC and can include a gym instructor course to become a personal trainer, for example.

 

These extras should be seriously considered by those within the system, but they perhaps still wouldn’t have benefitted Josh Carmichael if he was coming through today. Can more apprenticeship or practical courses be offered to help cater for those who don’t want to use their BTEC in sport? JP Morgan offers a professional athlete training programme where they train you for six months to gain the skills to potentially land a job afterwards, should more courses such as this be adopted?

Data from a survey I created revealed that, despite the small sample size; 84% of respondents believe a BTEC isn’t sufficient and 100% believe backup plans should be implemented. However, whose responsibility should it be to create a backup plan? Arguments could be made for the clubs, the FA or the individual player, but should it be a combination of all of them? As Jimmy Glass pointed out, creating an individual backup plan would cost a lot of money, so who should shoulder that burden?

Academy football’s future could be complex and it’s important that those in power get it right. Is the answer within Tony Pulis’s proposal of a dual-scholarship programme funded by the Premier League but run by an independent body that focuses on preparation for an alternative career? Time will tell whether the FA adopts it.