"Manchester City – killing football since 2008” read the rib-tickling City banner in the away end at Tottenham on the opening day of the season.
It was the Blues fans’ ironic response to some of the nonsense that has been spouted about the club since their takeover by Sheikh Mansour.
The huge injection of money, had, we were told by some of the supposed great and good of the game, distorted the transfer market, created a wage explosion and crushed their own, famed academy in one fell swoop.
The dubious validity of the first two accusations have been debated at length, but the notion that the Blues have somehow stifled their own proud record of producing academy players simply does not stack up. Indeed, a brisk walk around the academy premises at Platt Lane speaks of a set-up which is not just thriving as of old, but bursting with innovation and progress, and which has benefited from £10m of investment over the past two years.
With Uefa’s financial fair play rules appearing as a small storm cloud on the horizon of all of Europe’s biggest clubs, the academy becomes more central to City’s future than it has ever been.
City’s strategy for meeting the stringent new rules is to build a new team for the short term with the kind of outlay which has brought superstars like Carlos Tevez, David Silva and Yaya Toure to the club.
But by the time the regulations are in full swing in 2019, and the club has to meet its outgoings from its revenue, they hope the academy will still be churning out top players.
City envisage the academy being the biggest and best in the world by then, but Platt Lane’s head of education Peter Lowe says their basic task has not changed.
“People talk about the £300m or whatever it is that the current owners have spent on the business, but buying players is not a new thing in football,” he said.
Blooded
“It may have gone beyond what we have seen in the past, due to the price of players these days and the number we have brought in, but this club has also produced 34 players who have made the first team in the 12 years since the inception of our academy.
“There are 10 internationals in that and over 60 who are now playing in other forms of professional football. That is a pretty impressive record in anybody’s books and we will continue to produce players here because that is the expectancy of the owners.
“We know that our part of the bargain is to produce a sustainable structure, a sustainable business, in which we can continue to produce players.”
Mancini has bought into the strategic nature of what City are trying to do – he blooded several youngsters last season, and has continued to hand out chances.
“We have had several players in the first team this season, and Alex Nimely-Tchuimeni , Greg Cunningham and Abdi Ibrahim all played in the first team last season, while Dedryck Boyata is continuing to make a career for himself in the first team,” says Lowe. It’s not a bad return. This is the inside of a business where people are suggesting it wouldn’t continue – well it has continued, and we expect it to continue.
“We don’t produce players to play in the next game – we produce players for a career. Our product is longevity, not a five-minute job.
“The expectations of the company have not changed in that regard. The heat hasn’t been turned up at all – the pressure of the first-team manager is to get results, and our pressure is to produce players.
“That is no different to what it was ten years ago. When people see a player come through to the first team and do well, people then expect to see others do the same.”
The sight of players Guidetti, Nimely and Cunningham seeing some daylight in terms of the first team is pure gold for the staff at the academy. As well as vindicating their work, it also offers inspiration to the scores of young players who roll up at the facility, in the heart of south Manchester.
One of them is Harry Bunn, a promising 18-year-old striker who has been at the academy for nine years, and is the son of Oldham Athletic legend Frankie. And he says that the influx of masses of superstar players which came with the takeover has, far from daunting the youngsters, served to inspire them.
“The club’s history of bringing players through had a massive influence in me coming here,” he said. “It shows that players here will get a chance in the first team as long as you are good enough.
“The takeover has been a great thing. Every day you come in here and want to work hard to prove yourself, and when you see the big names ahead of you, it just spurs you on to do well.”
But City are intent on not becoming a meat market for professional footballers, and have introduced an intriguing scheme aimed at making sure they produce well-rounded human beings able to cope with the pressures of fame and fortune, or deal with the consequences of failing to make the grade.
Football has badly neglected that human side of player development in recent years, leading to car-crash footballers like Paul Gascoigne or Joey Barton. And tales of high-profile spending have helped to alienate Premier League footballers from their public, leading to a vision – often exaggerated – of a cosseted breed who live in bubbles, far removed from the everyday world. There is one story of a former Premier League manager who had previously been a top professional player, and had to ask advice on how you go about buying a television. He had everything laid on a plate for him since the age of 16, and simply did not understand the basics of everyday life.
Disastrous
City not only want to equip their young players with such ordinary life skills, but also to let them see the other side of life.
For that reason, every week players are involved in City’s community work, helping to coach not only kids from the club’s junior academy, but also underprivileged and disabled youngsters.
“If you cast your mind back to the disastrous results in the World Cup, a lot came out in the press,” said Lowe. “I remember one article that talked about the demise of a player’s development, not in a technical sense, but as a whole person.
“The term ‘holistic’ has been over-used, but we believe that if we provide an education for players in what the business of being a professional footballer is all about, we think his ability to become a better player – in terms of being a human being within the game – will increase.
“We have boys who leave the club every week to attend functions with City in the Community, and boys who are part and parcel of the junior academy coaching scheme.
“It also helps our boys to develop skills of an inter-personal nature, and reacting with other people, but they are also learning the other side of the job, which is being a coach.
“And it also looks at dealing with financial issues in a player’s life as he develops and gets more success in the game, and the ability to earn money becomes a reality.
“It’s a wide-ranging programme, and we feel we have gone a little step further in the development of a young player.
“We also need to teach them to be independent. Players are human beings at the end of the day, and inhabit the same society as the rest of us.
“They have the same pressures in that society as the rest of us, although theirs might be exacerbated somewhat. But they are human, open to the rigours and pressures of everyday life, so it’s about skill development.”
CITY is now bringing the expertise of the Blues academy to young footballers worldwide via the internet. The online resource aims at teaching kids basic football skills and giving them a glimpse of life at Platt Lane. Visit
www.cityecademy.com
and watch the video below for a taster from the site ...
Special report: Inside City's dream factory
November 25, 2010
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Another excellent article from you Stuart.
No wonder the rags come on the City pages as they have nothing of real interest going on at their club, other than Rooney returning from his mid season holiday after trousering 200k a week for loyally staying with ManU.
Yep United players are there out of love for the club. Which explains why Evra is off at the end of season.
Whats the betting rags will still be on here saying we're ruining football?
I don't care what anyone says, we're moving in the right direction and in a few years when we've got the success we deserve, people will forget all about the past couple of seasons crazy spending and hopefully we will produce some of the worlds best talent!
CTID!!!
Great idea by the way of having an online resource to teach kids basic football skills. Good that City have now covered that.
Perhaps given Uniteds ageing squad they could do something along the lines of providing an online resource for people about to retire? There would be a nice balance to that. A kind of ying and yang. Young and old, future and past..
Wonder if the RED TOPS, Sun, Mirror and the pro MUFC Daily Mail will pick up on this story. UNLIKELY.
Is that the "Manchester City – killing football since 2008” banner that the club made the fans take down at the first home game of the season and eject them from the stadium?
I am a City season ticket holder and that disgusted me and a load more.
The club needs to see the point of the banner and have it reinstated
One to watch, Adam Drury.
If buying top players to go on and be successful, then we like all the other clubs that have done so for years are guilty as charged. The big question is are we (City)ruining football? well yes, because when we are at the very top looking down on everyone else saying we told you so and mopping up every title that is to be mopped, we'll be ruining everyone else's chances to gain a trophy. It's coming, you better beware when City hit the heights we'll be unstoppable and to be honest I cannot wait to become the most hated club on the planet, because when all said and done we City fans are loyal and love the club regardless. When, not if City hit the heights we will be the ones laughing and saying all along we told you so. With the amount of money we have it's inevitable it's going to happen. So to all you negative anti City brigade continue with what you are doing and we'll just carry on with the task of becoming the most successful club to ever be established on the beautiful green grass of England!
Citylady loving the future, with a nice little grin
Thank you, Stuart, for a most interesting article.
A very informative (and reassuring) article Stu. Well done.
what a load of cobblers please tell me when the last three kids came thro your thriving academy and stayed in the team or squad, and the only reason your investing and harping on about it is because of the new rules when you will be forced to play ball in jan will u introduce kids in any shape or form dont think so you will buy again.... next summer you will buy again established stars not talent young, up and coming but proven talent you have no interest in bringing your kids thro you want success now not three years down the line so quit trying to be the big nice club when all you are is a trophy starved bunch of desperadoes who will play kids only when you have no choice.
more like Freddy and the Dreamers!!!
I wonder if SSN, Soccer Saturday, Sunday Supplement and all the pro-rag tabloids and broadsheets would be interested in a copy of this article? Go onM.E.N. prove that you're not part of the conspiracy!
Exciting times ahead.
I think the day City get their own global superstar trotting out from the academy doors would be a momentous day for the club.
The youth investment could well allow City to eclipse the European elite clubs and be perhaps the most exciting of all the actiities behind the doors at COMS
MUFC OK, Manchester (25/11/2010 at 10:07)
Truly obsessed
You surely are! Straight on the City pages first thing every day!
LOve it!!
TTFN
Thankfully the rules and regulations the Academy's now have prevents the wide-scale poaching of players that took place during the 80s and 90s. Players such as Scholes (Oldham Athletic) Ryan Giggs,Wes Brown,Nicky Butt, Simon Davies(Manchester City) all joined United without them having to pay out one Penny.
The new rules ensures that those clubs who still persist in tapping up players now have to pay adequate compensation United for example had to pay West Ham £250,000 for Kieran Richardson with staged payments related to progress.
We have at City a similar arrangement with Oldham for Mica Richards(its amazing the info whats out there on the net)
I have not seen the Youth Team this season and so I am looking forward to the FA Youth Cup tie at Oldham currently scheduled for the 11th of December.
Excellent news , great to see a positive article about city for a change . I think Boyota will make it , he was unfortunate v Arsenal and Lech ,but overall seems to have great prospects , he was superb v chelsea . Cunningham could become a good deputy for kolorov as well over time . Harry Bunn and Juan Roman from the u18s probably have what it takes too . Onwards and upwards the future is blue
The article states that the club has produced 34 players in the last 12 years who have made the first team can some one tell me what the 34 have won ? answers on the back of a post stamp please.
off topic - i would like to wish the Glazer family a happy thanksgiving!
City does a dam sight more in the Community than United. They ran recently free, yes FREE (take note United) football courses all over the Greater Manchester area and my son was able to benefit from it. They also run mascot and player escort competitions to give 5-12 year olds a chance to win a day of their life, meeting the players and walking onto the pitch, do United do this for their young fans?
City have gone out of their way to welcome youngsters and all credit to them! Who cares about 34 years, Blue Moon is rising and we'll be top very soon.
Well done on the article stuart & the MEN, ive always been proud of my club & proud to be a blue for over 40yrs, but now we realy are going places & no element of our club is being destroyed but greatly improved, one thing come to mind the other night is how fantasticly advanced our new website is, ie the reserve or as we are now named EDS games, its a struggle for people to get to these games for one thing & another, for me i used to go watch them every week ableit that was 20yrs ago as i live down sarf ! now, but i still am a season ticket holder & travel up for every home game, anyway back to my point, we are actually helping other clubs & there fans to be able to access there reserve games aswell so they can actually see how there youngsters are doing, someone on the BBc 606 website i presume it was a swampite actully posted a thanks to our club for screening the reserve game, so when the vultures of the sun & the mirror start writing articles like the one above people might just get a realistic view of what our great club is doing, but one thing is for sure we are most deffinately not ruining football we are improving the areas of it witch other clubs have failed to do !!! CTID BELIEVE.
Really refreshing to read some no nonsense quotes from guys who are operating at the "grass roots" level at the club. Turn on the TV or open the paper and every tom, dick and harry is an expert on Manchester City Football Club and how they're going about everything the wrong way. Talk to the real experts, the pros who are working hard to turn promising young footballers at Manchester City into not only outstanding footballers but also outstanding young men and you get a very different picture of how this terrible ruinous club of ours is really running it's affairs and building a future for itself. These people are "Football men" in the true sense of the word and a few words from them is worth a decade's worth of TV punditry and tabloid press speculation.
Pure propaganda again from the MCEN.
I can only wonder how it took to get you on the bankroll.
good artical Stuart. Now can you please do something about the rags that come on our site.
I am sick to death of reading the childish cr*p they write on here, For God sake, give us a break.
City has always been good about this sort of stuff ever since I've been following them.
Lets face it we have had the best academy in the country for years. City have always had good youth players being brought through. Mick the red firemam says "Yes but what have they won". Mick many have gone on to play at international level and we are still producing them. That is winning something in itself, an individual honour one that they are surely proud of and so are we and the club.
We do get so much negative press from all over whether it be pundits, ex pro,s and the media, this is one article well written thats says it all in a positive way.
I think its time to stop listening to the gutter and concentrate and support the club we know!