Rumarn Burrell

Quoted from Maringer

Hurst has spoken disparagingly about the fitness levels of these youngsters who have come on loan and I get the impression he's less than impressed with the way some of the Championship clubs develop players.

The games they play are probably equivalent to pre-season games. Find your feet, nothing stupid, don’t get injured. So these games are meaningless.

It’s been said many times before on here, but mid/late 80s, BP had circa 6000 in for the reserve game v Liverpool. Surely a reserve league again, is a better idea than that papa John’s trophy. Players get to experience playing in front of bigger crowds and it has that competitive edge to it.

I think Hurst addressed the issue of reserve and U18 games at the forum. I'm not too sure but I think it had to do with fixture arrangements etc. Check out the forum for the exact answer.

Quoted from WOZOFGRIMSBY

The games they play are probably equivalent to pre-season games. Find your feet, nothing stupid, don’t get injured. So these games are meaningless.

It’s been said many times before on here, but mid/late 80s, BP had circa 6000 in for the reserve game v Liverpool. Surely a reserve league again, is a better idea than that papa John’s trophy. Players get to experience playing in front of bigger crowds and it has that competitive edge to it.

I watched that game but it was a one-off as regards attendance. There were 2 or 3 Liverpool first teamers ( forget who they were) who were coming back after after injury. I watched several Grimsby reserve matches in the late 60's/ early 70's against teams like Belper and Goole Town with attendances at BP in the low hundreds.
However a reserve league against higher league opposition has its benefits but how would you select what teams played when you have the Premiersh*t, Championship and Leagues 1 and 2 all possibly wanting to participate?

Quoted from rancido

I watched that game but it was a one-off as regards attendance. There were 2 or 3 Liverpool first teamers ( forget who they were) who were coming back after after injury. I watched several Grimsby reserve matches in the late 60's/ early 70's against teams like Belper and Goole Town with attendances at BP in the low hundreds.
However a reserve league against higher league opposition has its benefits but how would you select what teams played when you have the Premiersh*t, Championship and Leagues 1 and 2 all possibly wanting to participate?

I know, why dont we set up a competition with mini leagues so teams can play there reserves/youth. Call it the Pizza Hut Trophy or something  

You would think it would be relatively easy to set up a local/regional league including us, Lincoln, Hull, Donny, Barnsley, Rotherham etc

10 teams or so, they all get 18 games a season and a trophy at the end of it.

We could include Scunny so every league team is guaranteed at least 2 wins.

(in all seriousness: I bet Boston, Scunny, Chesterfield etc would love to get involved with something like that).

B teams?

Hurst did speak quite well about the reserve leagues at the forum.

He basically said that we pulled out of the league because it didn't fit what we wanted, we were told when to play games regardless if it suited or schedule or not.  This was the same for other clubs and it just became a glorified youth team league, as has become the Lincs Cup.

I think there's massive value in a reserve league as a bridge between the youth and mens league, but everyone has to be all in on it.  Football has changed since the early 90's when the reserve leagues were vibrant and competitive.  I can remember a sense of achievement when Town won their league in the mid-90's, it actually meant something.   Now the game is as much about the squad as it is the first XI.   With our back-to-back fixture schedule, there's no way Hurst (or any other manager) would risk fringe players in remotely competitive reserve fixtures for fear of weakening options.

It's a shame because squads are big enough these days to get away with it but it's just the way the game has gone.  

Quoted from toontown

I thought these things (tier 1 academy nicking a player from a league 2 academy) were based on a formula which someone posted a link to and pretty sure it was a lot less than 100k  more like 25k or similar. Anyway looks like we got the better side of the deal in the end.

I think we got a better deal because more than one club was after him.  Reading between the lines, if it was only one club chasing him we would have got the standard fee.  But 'Boro effectively bought him from us rather than poached, so an agreement on the fee was made to ensure they got him ahead of others.  I believe there's things we could have done to make it more difficult for them to get his registration had it gone down the standard poaching route.