Qualifying at The Academy = no success guaranteed (West Ham United F.C. other Players)

Member Name: Sugar Matty O

Product:	West Ham United F.C. other Players
Date:	29/07/01 (142 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Raw energy and could give the money-grabbers the kick up the backside they need, Carrick and Cole have proven youth is not neccesarily a risk

Disadvantages: If we have such a great system, why so many contract terminations?

With the new campaign drawing ever nearer and West Ham speculators saying more youth should be given a chance instead of the past-it money-grabbers occupying valuable first team space, why have West Ham been labelled the academy when they consistently let go promising talent predicted to be the next big thing? Is the burden of expectation too much or is the Academy merely a two-tier operation of the exceptional getting a look-in while the just as talented get sent to the coast for a season without hope of muscling their way into the first XI? I say this in the wake of another useful youngster - 19 year old Amos Foyewa, a consistent performer at youth and reserve team level - getting a free transfer to Bournemouth without so much as sitting his backside down in the West Ham dressing room. For all the plaudits West Ham have received through the grooming of England candidates Ferdinand, Lampard, Carrick and Cole, why do so many of their ilk with just as much raw talent and as many points to prove end up on the scrapheap of could-have-beens? Names that spring to mind instantly: Bertie Brayley, who tore Coventry apart in the FA Youth Cup a couple of seasons back and has since disappeared totally; Jimmy Bullard and Gavin Holligan - drafted in I think once against Liverpool away and then discarded; Stevland Angus, Steven Purches and Terell Forbes - all Bournemouth-bred before the latter gets a transfer to QPR. Combined first team appearances - zero. The Hammers are also guilty of bringing the supposed cream of youth over from Australia - Chrissy Coyne, Michael Ferrante and Dicky Garcia - and before you know it they're going straight back from where they came. I appreciate experience,squad rotation reasoning and the fact that every year you DO have to let players go - but last season a bit of youthful vigour could have done the team the world of good instead of having to rely on those obviously over-confident in not expecting anything too much to come of a relegation ba
ttle. People rave about the potential of Defoe and Bywater - step back folks, the Hammers had to fork out near enough £3million for those two...

And if you think that this is a recent phenomenon, don't forget that the Hammers released one Matt Holland not so long ago. Now he's proved he could be a player West Ham need to get moving up the table again. Out with the old and in with the new, give the youth a chance, because they are the life and soul of this club in years to come, and without them Glenn Roeder will have to resort on the age-old trait of dodgy foreign signings to take us back to the brink...and if anyone knows where Shaun Byrne's gone, let us know!

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