Just a thought...

When we was kids from an early age we used to go to our local school fields and play football all day at weekends and after school ect.
Sometimes there would be some old blokes ( people in their 20sand 30s) and we'd give them a game too .

Now a days all schools fields are locked up and fenced off and anyone playing football with kids would be arrested as Peados.

Young kids  don't have the freedom to leave their house that we did in the 70s and 80s ect , Being taken to some coaching set up once a week and paying £3 is not going to produce a world class player

We have a larger, more diverse population then at any time in our history. I cannot accept that less "naturally"  talented players are born in the modern day.

Therefore you have to look at the differences that are now in place to previous generations, a number of these have been covered above including:
- computer games
- alleged safety issues so kids not allowed as much freedom
- demise of school football replaced with organised youth football, best players to best teams etc.
- the nearly total disbandonment of local mens football
- need for instant success influences by likes of talksport, radio 5 live and social media
- the academy and local professional approach to being affiliated to a club which more often then not requires hours of trave, frequent attendance during week and weekends and a ban on playing with your mates.

Currently, there is no evidence that increased levels of coaching from a young age produces "better quality" footballers, more organised and professional, yes.

This may change at national level given success of all age groups below the national team but this will only surely happen if those kids get a chance. I believe the two most successful clubs in the professional ranks, clearing up most youth trophies, are Chelsea & Man City, neither renowned for bringing through their young talent. Indeed heard Craig Bellamy state that Man City run their academy solely as a business and in this summer player sales through this system brought in £75m.

Clubs have to be stopped buying up all the young talent and loaning out 20 or 30 plus players to try and pick off the cream.

The clock can never be turned back but my era played because we loved playing and so do kids today. The incredible growth of youth football has seen the rise of many aspiring Mourinhos who start to take that enjoyment away. I accept youth football has many well meaning and dedicated people who do a great job but a system that has players travelling county wide to often get beat by double figures from the age of 6 upwards, is not IMO, helping the development of these kids. I believe football at younger ages should be developed via the schools, removing attracting all best players to two or three clubs, and local youth football should probably kick in around under 13 age.

In our day this did not exist and at 14 you started playing mens football on Saturday and Sunday with a number of these players going on to having professional careers, locally here John Ward, Dean Crombie and Gary Crosby all were recruited from local football, with Dean going straight from Lincs League to Lincoln's first team within a couple of weeks.

It's a mixed bag of reasons why we aren't at the front at the game we gave to the world. Greedy players taking far more than they are worth in every league which results in less speculation from clubs for coaching and developing kids from an early age.

Some kids either think they know it all or won't play when the weather gets tough. I remember practicing diving headers in the snow at Sidney park when I was a kid.

Parents and kid football managers badgering the kids to win as others have said, I managed a kids footy team when my lad was young and everybody regardless of ability got equal game time, we finished 4th out of 8 in our league, the kids loved it, one or two parents whose kids were star players weren't too happy but in the end they said their kid loved being part of the team.

I also refereed a few games and had to tell managers and parents alike to get off the pitch, a couple of games I had to stop the game until the manager and parents got off the pitch.

It's not just football but sport in total, it's about time that leisure facilities were opened up for free, so budget doesn't come into it. Swimming for example can help kids develop strength in a low impact way, also increasing lung capacity.

The fun in football has been sucked out at all levels, we need a major over haul and a fresh look to bring back success and excitement in the sport we treasure so dearly.

Quoted from Lincoln Mariner 56

We have a larger, more diverse population then at any time in our history. I cannot accept that less "naturally"  talented players are born in the modern day.

Therefore you have to look at the differences that are now in place to previous generations, a number of these have been covered above including:
- computer games
- alleged safety issues so kids not allowed as much freedom
- demise of school football replaced with organised youth football, best players to best teams etc.
- the nearly total disbandonment of local mens football
- need for instant success influences by likes of talksport, radio 5 live and social media
- the academy and local professional approach to being affiliated to a club which more often then not requires hours of trave, frequent attendance during week and weekends and a ban on playing with your mates.

Currently, there is no evidence that increased levels of coaching from a young age produces "better quality" footballers, more organised and professional, yes.

This may change at national level given success of all age groups below the national team but this will only surely happen if those kids get a chance. I believe the two most successful clubs in the professional ranks, clearing up most youth trophies, are Chelsea & Man City, neither renowned for bringing through their young talent. Indeed heard Craig Bellamy state that Man City run their academy solely as a business and in this summer player sales through this system brought in £75m.

Clubs have to be stopped buying up all the young talent and loaning out 20 or 30 plus players to try and pick off the cream.

The clock can never be turned back but my era played because we loved playing and so do kids today. The incredible growth of youth football has seen the rise of many aspiring Mourinhos who start to take that enjoyment away. I accept youth football has many well meaning and dedicated people who do a great job but a system that has players travelling county wide to often get beat by double figures from the age of 6 upwards, is not IMO, helping the development of these kids. I believe football at younger ages should be developed via the schools, removing attracting all best players to two or three clubs, and local youth football should probably kick in around under 13 age.

In our day this did not exist and at 14 you started playing mens football on Saturday and Sunday with a number of these players going on to having professional careers, locally here John Ward, Dean Crombie and Gary Crosby all were recruited from local football, with Dean going straight from Lincs League to Lincoln's first team within a couple of weeks.

Add to that over coaching of youngsters when "just go out and enjoy yourself will do". Last week at BP I noticed that the Gimps made a change and Nicky Cowley spent 5 minutes talking the player through some paper details and diagram's details in a clip file. If  a player at that level needs that kind of instruction there is no wonder the England team look paralyzed by fear and lack any form of creativity.

Just wondering but why is there only Ozil, there might be others I don't know about, from Germany playing over here, surely we can match their wages, as we all know there national team will always make the semis of any tournament they enter.so why don't the premier clubs sign Germans.

Good point Gaffer. And of the big countries Germany has the closest style to the British approach of power and athleticism. They're just better at it.

Or maybe that's why? Too close and/but not giving us enough to cope with the Latin teams.

I'm guessing most play for Bayern, who are bigger than any english club, bar Man U. (There's also Can, Sane, Mustafi and Rudiger)

Mertesacker, Podolski and Jerome Boateng have all been in the Prem whilst playing for the German National team.

I bow to those that know their Germans, after some chap called Adolf I struggled.

He was Austrian!