United and academy category one

[Headshrinker]

Upgrading the academy is great, but I actually think we may be smart to not seek category 1 status. As it stands we are one of the big fish in the PDL. Players come here knowing they will be on the winning side, and creative players will see the ball/score goals. Rubbing shoulders with the Man City/Chelsea academies will make our youth teams uncompetitive, which you may say 'who cares' (and you'd be right with respect to the results), but that may make us a less attractive place to develop.

Right now we are probably the no.1 academy outside the category 1 club, and I think that has weirdly given us a unique advantage for picking up talents.

That is an interesting perspective. The mental side of winning (instead of losing) every other week is not to be underestimated. And with that comes creative and offensive football, as you noted. You may not get the better players but you may indeed help them reach their potential better this way.

Still, is it better as a whole? Who knows...

 

[Yogi]

I think the issue is it’s not big enough to be both cat 1 and first team training centre. If the first team moves to another location isn’t Shirecliffe big enough for cat 1 then?

Yes it’s not big enough for both as to achieve Cat one the academy side needs an increased number of dedicated academy pitches both grass and synthetic which means we can’t count them if the first team also have access to them. Also needs a dedicated gym and physio room alongside an increased number of classrooms and the staff to run all these new facilities.

Palace’s new academy gives a good ball park idea of what’s needed.

Gareth Southgate opens stunning £20m Palace Academy - News - Crystal Palace F.C.

www.cpfc.co.uk

 

[diode_blade]

Wasn't there some talk a couple of years ago of the HSBC ground at Dore being used as the academy?

 

[Yogi]

Wasn't there some talk a couple of years ago of the HSBC ground at Dore being used as the academy?

All sorts has been floated these last few years first it was Norton Aerodrome which was blocked due to planning restrictions then we were apparently looking at land near the airport but that went quiet.

 

[Westran]

Wasn't there some talk a couple of years ago of the HSBC ground at Dore being used as the academy?

All sorts has been floated these last few years first it was Norton Aerodrome which was blocked due to planning restrictions then we were apparently looking at land near the airport but that went quiet.

Think the last solid rumour was that Norton Aerodrome had been marked for building houses, and so we moved on to the Helipad site on the opposite side of Shirecliffe Road from our current academy, which would work quite well. It's a big site and already has 5 flat footy pitches on it with plenty of space for building.

 

[Yogi]

Think the last solid rumour was that Norton Aerodrome had been marked for building houses, and so we moved on to the Helipad site on the opposite side of Shirecliffe Road from our current academy, which would work quite well. It's a big site and already has 5 flat footy pitches on it with plenty of space for building.

Yeah there’s something in the original agreement for Norton Aerodrome which stipulates it has to be used for housing I think.

 

[Westran]

Yeah there’s something in the original agreement for Norton Aerodrome which stipulates it has to be used for housing I think.

It's definitely been marked for Housing now. 100%.

 

[Yewsman]

Was looking at photos of Leicester City Academy and Training facilities the other day. Looked absolutely amazing. But as others have said not only is it expensive to buy and build but also to staff a Cat One academy and if Leicester is an example don’t think they have produced anything like the number of players we have so you could argue their investment has been a waste of money. I would love us to have Cat One status but as others have said on here maybe we are better off as we are?

 

[John Cutsbushes]

The Arthur Lees site at Wincobank is big enough

 

[Grizzly blade]

Given our financial position there is no point upgrading our academy to Cat One. You won’t see the results for years and it takes a lot of investment. We’re nicely placed with our current setup, we play kids when they’re good enough and can hoover up talent when the big boys release them. I just don’t see the case for Cat one at the moment.
What the articles say is we’re upgrading what we have, not that we’re pushing to have a Cat One unless I’ve missed that bit.

Is our financial situation so much worse than many other similarly sized clubs?

I find this kind of thinking frustrating, and can only assume you may have been against KM’s initial decision to invest in the academy to get it where it is.
I seem to recall many folk suggesting that subsidising and initially funding was a waste of money that could have been used to fund the first team at the time and that proved a load of old bollocks…as is the theory that we cannot afford to invest to get it to the top level.

We simply have to get there if we wish to start producing kids capable of being premier league players every season.
We can’t afford transfer fees to buy them so we have to invest in the academy and make our own every year.
Granted we might struggle to draw away from Man U…but the area and size we have we would no longer see the brightest and best talent being rounded up and taken away in front of us.

If it costs £20m…£40m…get it done.

At least selling the current site might get some return locally.

 

[Flatulent_Bob]

Is our financial situation so much worse than many other similarly sized clubs?

I find this kind of thinking frustrating, and can only assume you may have been against KM’s initial decision to invest in the academy to get it where it is.
I seem to recall many folk suggesting that subsidising and initially funding was a waste of money that could have been used to fund the first team at the time and that proved a load of old bollocks…as is the theory that we cannot afford to invest to get it to the top level.

We simply have to get there if we wish to start producing kids capable of being premier league players every season.
We can’t afford transfer fees to buy them so we have to invest in the academy and make our own every year.
Granted we might struggle to draw away from Man U…but the area and size we have we would no longer see the brightest and best talent being rounded up and taken away in front of us.

If it costs £20m…£40m…get it done.

At least selling the current site might get some return locally.

Many assumptions about my thoughts on the academy over the years, all wrong.
3 questions directly relating to what you’ve posted if you wouldn’t mind answering.
1.) Can you explain what Cat one gives us, over a gradual continued improvement in our Cat Two academy for the £20-40m you suggest we should spend?
2,) What comparable sized teams in the Championship or lower have a Cat one academy which isn’t heavily subsided by wealthy owners? If you list the clubs you believe are compatibly sized I’m pretty sure that yes we are in a worse financial situation than them due to us not having wealthy owners who is able to subsidise us.
3,) Running a Cat one academy is expensive likely to eat into all your transfer and wage budgets for any future non PL seasons. Are you seriously proposing writing off the first team and hopes or promotion back to the PL so that we produce our own players, exactly as we do now?


Our academy is doing ok for producing talent for our first team at our current level and the wider pyramid. Cat one gives us very little added benefit as a non-PL side especially as we’re seeming very good at hoovering up the talent from other academies and giving them a path to regular game time. What we’ve got is successful and cost effective, why not just continue to improve it gradually and use the money where it’s needed right now?

 

[Ball_Sup (Phil)]

Essentially it boils down to an inconvenient truth/question - do you want to be a football club, or a football team.

 

[Silent Blade]

The below clubs have Category 1 Academies. Nine or ten of them will be in Championship division next season and two will be in League 1. Not worth the risk for us, I say

 

[Flatulent_Bob]

Essentially it boils down to an inconvenient truth/question - do you want to be a football club, or a football team.

I don’t think it’s even that romantic.
It’s the practicalities of running it as Reading, Birmingham, Burnley etc have found out.

I think without PL funding it’s just not affordable (possibly by design by the PL to favour their members). I mean isn’t it £3m a year just to be in the club nevermind building and running it? That’s expensive on championship budgets.

You’ll have a better view of this than most Phil, is it really a realistic aim for a championship club anymore?

 

[Flatulent_Bob]

The below clubs have Category 1 Academies. Nine or ten of them will be in Championship division next season and two will be in League 1. Not worth the risk for us, I say
View attachment 161385

Have Swansea stepped back up? They dropped to Cat two only a couple of years ago due to the ongoing costs of running it?

The full extent of Swansea's academy saving and the strategy that still remains

Swansea City's academy lost its category one status in 2020

www.walesonline.co.uk

 

[Silent Blade]

have Swe

Have Swansea stepped back up? They dropped to Cat two only a couple of years ago due to the ongoing costs of running it?

The full extent of Swansea's academy saving and the strategy that still remains

Swansea City's academy lost its category one status in 2020

www.walesonline.co.uk

Didnt realise that the picture is an old one! Will try and find an updated one

 

[Silent Blade]

Have Swansea stepped back up? They dropped to Cat two only a couple of years ago due to the ongoing costs of running it?

The full extent of Swansea's academy saving and the strategy that still remains

Swansea City's academy lost its category one status in 2020

www.walesonline.co.uk

Found the list for 2022-23

 

[Flatulent_Bob]

Found the list for 2022-23

View attachment 161387
View attachment 161388

Cheers Silent. I didn’t think there were many Championship sides and all are in a better financial position than us, either due to owners subsidising like Stoke, Blackburn, Sunderland or clubs who’ve had a good few consecutive seasons of PL to get it setup, WBA, Norwich.
Derby is the only outlier for me and they had wealthy owners subsidising it before it went pop so I’d be interested how long they’d continue fund it.
I’d personally love a wealthy owner to come in and fund it for us as a present to the fans/club but in our current position I just don’t see how it’s possible.

 

[Le Cynique]

Can we just take advantage of Derby’s cat one status and keep taking players like Bogle? It’s not doing them a great deal of good at the moment (although without it I’m not sure what kids they’d have played when Rooney was in charge and they were in administration).

 

[Flatulent_Bob]

Can we just take advantage of Derby’s cat one status and keep taking players like Bogle? It’s not doing them a great deal of good at the moment (although without it I’m not sure what kids they’d have played when Rooney was in charge and they were in administration).

There’d be a couple I’d look at if we were in the Championship next season and they’re still not. Which, if our policy this season is to scrimp by then we should be able to take maximum advantage of the parachute payments as relegation clauses kick in on our wages but without transfer fee payments needing to be made as we had last time.

 

[Le Cynique]

Eirin Cashin, Max Bird, Jason Knight and Louis Sibley would be on my watch list. I think quite a few other Blades have said the same thing.

 

[Grizzly blade]

Many assumptions about my thoughts on the academy over the years, all wrong.
3 questions directly relating to what you’ve posted if you wouldn’t mind answering.
1.) Can you explain what Cat one gives us, over a gradual continued improvement in our Cat Two academy for the £20-40m you suggest we should spend?
2,) What comparable sized teams in the Championship or lower have a Cat one academy which isn’t heavily subsided by wealthy owners? If you list the clubs you believe are compatibly sized I’m pretty sure that yes we are in a worse financial situation than them due to us not having wealthy owners who is able to subsidise us.
3,) Running a Cat one academy is expensive likely to eat into all your transfer and wage budgets for any future non PL seasons. Are you seriously proposing writing off the first team and hopes or promotion back to the PL so that we produce our own players, exactly as we do now?


Our academy is doing ok for producing talent for our first team at our current level and the wider pyramid. Cat one gives us very little added benefit as a non-PL side especially as we’re seeming very good at hoovering up the talent from other academies and giving them a path to regular game time. What we’ve got is successful and cost effective, why not just continue to improve it gradually and use the money where it’s needed right now?

I see someone has bothered to post the Cat1 academies that confirm my point.
Boro/Norwich for a start stand out.
Then reading til this season and West Brom, Sunderland, Stoke.

However-

1- The Cat 1 academy not coming in and swiping your best talent and giving you a paltry sum in compensation.
By FAR the biggest asset it brings, closely followed by the ability to raid other clubs for their talent!

2- Our young players testing themselves against the best talent in the country. Improve quicker and more likely to step up to first team OR importantly go elsewhere for a transfer fee. Having won their respective leagues easily it suggests they need to be better tested to develop.

3- Yes I am. Despite promotion to the richest league in the world, we have £20m apparently to fund purchases this season. All because we had to buy a fair few a few years back from championship clubs!!
So, given the current plan of going up…blowing it all just to come down again isn’t sustainable or successful. We need a cheaper source of that talent.
So being a bit more forward thinking than the current backward thinking method of loaning Cat 1 clubs academy players for huge fees has to stop!!

It’s an actual no brainier for those not so narrow minded.

If you want long term success we can’t afford it unless we get a benefactor. This is the most likely way we could get it in the future. And guess what…it may well even generate success pretty much straight away too if you snaffle a few off the bat.

 

[Flatulent_Bob]

I see someone has bothered to post the Cat1 academies that confirm my point.
Boro/Norwich for a start stand out.
Then reading til this season and West Brom, Sunderland, Stoke.

So, using your criteria of similar size to us, none of them are in our financial position due to owner backing, or the fact the academy was built while having consecutive seasons in the PL to fund it.
We’re not in a even slightly similar position.
To call out Norwich and Boro, as similar to us is laughable. Norwich is potentially the model if we can sustain a couple of season up here, or go down and come back again, but they’re light years ahead of us currently.

1- The Cat 1 academy not coming in and swiping your best talent and giving you a paltry sum in compensation.
By FAR the biggest asset it brings, closely followed by the ability to raid other clubs for their talent!

This has hardly ever happened to us, and the one I can remember the kid wanted to return to London as we’d pilfered them from there originally. They were one of our own.
There was also the kid who went to Man City but those are the only two.
Who else was there?

3- Yes I am. Despite promotion to the richest league in the world, we have £20m apparently to fund purchases this season. All because we had to buy a fair few a few years back from championship clubs!!
So, given the current plan of going up…blowing it all just to come down again isn’t sustainable or successful. We need a cheaper source of that talent.

So what you are proposing is two PL transfer budgets. How are we getting back to fund it?

So being a bit more forward thinking than the current backward thinking method of loaning Cat 1 clubs academy players for huge fees has to stop!!

It’s an actual no brainier for those not so narrow minded.
If you want long term success we can’t afford it unless we get a benefactor. This is the most likely way we could get it in the future. And guess what…it may well even generate success pretty much straight away too if you snaffle a few off the bat.

But none of the Championship clubs without benefactors can afford them. Those having to cover the costs themselves are downgrading to Cat two. Swansea, Reading, Birmingham, the only ones left are owned by Billionaires which we don’t have.

It’s a lovely romantic thought but without the money to build and sustain it it’s nothing but that.

 

[Grizzly blade]

So, using your criteria of similar size to us, none of them are in our financial position due to owner backing, or the fact the academy was built while having consecutive seasons in the PL to fund it.
We’re not in a even slightly similar position.
To call out Norwich and Boro, as similar to us is laughable. Norwich is potentially the model if we can sustain a couple of season up here, or go down and come back again, but they’re light years ahead of us currently.


This has hardly ever happened to us, and the one I can remember the kid wanted to return to London as we’d pilfered them from there originally. They were one of our own.
There was also the kid who went to Man City but those are the only two.
Who else was there?



So what you are proposing is two PL transfer budgets. How are we getting back to fund it?


But none of the Championship clubs without benefactors can afford them. Those having to cover the costs themselves are downgrading to Cat two. Swansea, Reading, Birmingham, the only ones left are owned by Billionaires which we don’t have.

It’s a lovely romantic thought but without the money to build and sustain it it’s nothing but that.

In your opinion.
Norwich and Boro are far from light years ahead. And the ones you mention aren’t choosing to go to Cat 2, they are being downgraded. Blackburn?
The turnover at United, gate size and commercial revenues has been equal or more compared to those clubs over the last 4 seasons.

And how do you know it’s never happened to us? Players for years have appeared at other clubs academies despite being in a region where United could get them. And losing only two you can think of is two too many, but there will be many more lost between 10 and 16 that never make the headlines.

No, like you I have no idea the cost of upgrading the academy. I chucked figures in as ludicrous amounts that if true would be well worth it, and given a large chunk is wages that’s paid as we go anyway.
And it’s not 2 premier league season budgets…one seasons budget is technically £140m and rising depending on league position…how a club dices that is up to them. We pay low comparative wages and pay loads for loans presently. Dead money. And that’s going to be more. We have a NET Transfer fee budget of £20m.

So call it fanciful, pie in the sky, romanticising, but get it right and maintain it there’s no reason at all we cannot continue to produce players, just better ones ready for the big leagues. We already pay a fair whack to keep it going, we just pay a bit more.

 

[nickwr37]

The Arthur Lees site at Wincobank is big enough

On a side, note my Grandad worked there for c55 years and finished as the Chief Rolling Mill designer. Clever man and the drawings to detail he could produce clearly enabled his woodwork skills, particularly making chess boards and the figures.
Cat 1 academy. If ever achieved and sited there then nostalgic for me. He hated sport! Other Grandad got me into Blades.

 

[Flatulent_Bob]

In your opinion.
Norwich and Boro are far from light years ahead. And the ones you mention aren’t choosing to go to Cat 2, they are being downgraded. Blackburn?
The turnover at United, gate size and commercial revenues has been equal or more compared to those clubs over the last 4 seasons.

And how do you know it’s never happened to us? Players for years have appeared at other clubs academies despite being in a region where United could get them. And losing only two you can think of is two too many, but there will be many more lost between 10 and 16 that never make the headlines.

No, like you I have no idea the cost of upgrading the academy. I chucked figures in as ludicrous amounts that if true would be well worth it, and given a large chunk is wages that’s paid as we go anyway.
And it’s not 2 premier league season budgets…one seasons budget is technically £140m and rising depending on league position…how a club dices that is up to them. We pay low comparative wages and pay loads for loans presently. Dead money. And that’s going to be more. We have a NET Transfer fee budget of £20m.

So call it fanciful, pie in the sky, romanticising, but get it right and maintain it there’s no reason at all we cannot continue to produce players, just better ones ready for the big leagues. We already pay a fair whack to keep it going, we just pay a bit more.

You don’t get the £140m for the first season in a nice big single payment and you need it to pay your players once you’re relegated else you can’t afford the wages needed to get promoted. Or you need someone with deep pockets covering those bills, like Blackburn, Stoke, Boro, have.
The Prince has already said he can’t subsidise us anymore so if we go down we need the payments.

 

[Grizzly blade]

You don’t get the £140m for the first season in a nice big single payment and you need it to pay your players once you’re relegated else you can’t afford the wages needed to get promoted. Or you need someone with deep pockets covering those bills, like Blackburn, Stoke, Boro, have.
The Prince has already said he can’t subsidise us anymore so if we go down we need the payments.

Yes, I know.
But given Sunderland built a whole academy from scratch for £10m…20yrs ago…let’s say costs have doubled since then….so £20m all in, top of the range everything and make it the first team training ground too.
It takes 12 months to build….costs spread over the term of the contract.
On top of that it’s around £3m a year to run. Or 2 players on £30k a week.

So from a single seasons guaranteed TV money (not forgetting all other revenue of course) we cannot risk that amount?
When we also have 2 other sites we could sell off or whatever to help fund it??
You create one world class player and get the fee they deserve it’s paid for itself several times over and funded the staffing for several years to come.

And here’s the thing about getting promoted, we did it once with a L1 side…Luton have done it today with nothing too dissimilar. There’s nothing to say if we chuck money at making it Cat1 we won’t get promoted again.

 

[Keen Blade]

What did the Prince mean in his interview when he said "we are getting close with the planning for the academy" ?
Did he mean Planning Permission ?
If so , what application for PP have we submitted ?

 

[Champagneblade]

I suppose there is a speculate to accumulate element here.

It might cost more to run a Cat 1 Academy but you will be allowed to spread the net wider and have more of a footing to, in League of Gentlemen parlance to tell admiring clubs to "Piss Off Ross!"

Also through this greater scope you should be more confident in being able to produce better players or more of them.

This in turn should mean you have less need to fortify your team due to having produced more first team players and will be able to hang on to gems longer to realise a far greater value. It also means you can become the hunter rather than the hunted and pick off rather unfairly (if you're the one being picked) for not much of a premium other Academy's star players, that rank below Academy Cat 1.

So I suppose it just comes down to how confident you are in mining these additional tools at your disposal.

Do you back yourself to make it pay or not?

 

[Dave]

A benefit of a cat 1 academy is that it increases your catchment area that you can pick from. This is vitally important for getting the best players in. Southampton became a cat 1 academy and their catchment area increased in size. They had the unfortunate situation of half of their catchment area being in the sea, so they applied to have another area added which was granted by the FA. This area was south wales, where they were able to aquire a certain Gareth Bale....Soton are known for their youth set up and bringing players through.

It will cost us a lot of money to set up the academy/new training facilities. There are only positives for doing this as it will bring in better coaches, scouts and more importantly players. Shirecliffe WMC building is not a championship let alone PL training facility and we have polished a turd as much as we can. Spend the money and we will see the rewards.