Duncan Idehan

Quoted from diehardmariner

I think James it up quite nicely, Hurst has never really looked to develop the young lads during his time here.  That's not a criticism of Hurst, I think his approach is the victim of circumstance.  During his first spell the remit was always very short term, never looking beyond May time with a view to getting back in the football league.  That's not an environment that lends itself towards giving someone who's 19/20 a contract for another year to develop just a little bit more.  Whilst the likes of Paul Walker, Caine Winnfarah et al may have benefited from another year, Hurst felt that over the course of the season he was better using that budget on the likes of Evan Horwood or Christian Jolley come the final few months of the season.  You can't blame him for that.

I can only really think of Andi Thanoj who broke through under Hurst and got a consistent run of games.  In Thanoj was a very good player who it's probably fair to say never quite fulfilled his potential for a variety of reasons.  But for the relative success we've had with the youth set-up, the success rate was poor during those Conference years.  Thanoj with Clifton and Wright enjoying loan spells at Grantham, Boston and Scarborough levels.

With 1878 having more of an eye on the future and long term planning, it surprised me that Starbuck and Idehen were let go.  Starbuck didn't have a great first year of a pro (Jesus, who had a decent year last season?) but he was outstanding as a final year YT and has since established himself nicely at an Academy Under 23 side. Of course there are arguments about some of the quality in those sides but by all accounts he's actually doing well, that's at a level that's considerably higher than the infrequent reserve games we have.    At this stage, this has to be chalked up as one that got away.  

Quite unsure why Idehen has been singled out as such a poor performer last season.  I thought he looked raw but with potential.  He was making his first bow into professional football on the left hand side of a disjointed defence with either the injured Mattie Pollock or well off the pace Luke Waterfall one side of him, then the horrifically exposed Danny Preston the other side.  This isn't really a compliment but I thought in the early stages of the season he was our best defender.

I've got a feeling that Hurst felt both would benefit from moving away from the club, perhaps to refocus or just because that first year was so poor that there's no recovery for a young player in those circumstances.  The fact they've both been picked up by clubs much higher in the level doesn't suggest ability is the issue.

If (and this is speculating) they were released in order to free up funds for the squad in other areas, then it's bloody annoying that we've been lumbered with the salary of Sean Scannell for another and ended up signing Joel Grant.  Hindsight and all if's and but's, yet difficult to not wonder how many raw 18/19 year old lads could get another years development for the same cost as those two...

It looks like the youth production line is continuing to churn out talent under Neil Woods.  The gap is that bridge between youth and men's game. I've seen stuff from 1878 that they want to see our homegrown talent emerge and establish themselves, sometimes you've gotta give the lads a fair run at it to see if they'll make it.  Jack Lester didn't look anything like a Championship level striker in his first half season, it was only his loan spell at Doncaster that saw him come back a different beast altogether.

Quoted from RichMariner

I think I share the frustrations that many of us have — we'd like to see local talent in the team but, as it's been pointed out by various people already, fans also want Hurst to deliver promotion this May.

If not this May, then next.

It's hard to give youngsters a chance when the pressure is always on. Effectively, they've got to be as good as McAtee, Pearson, Fox, Taylor, etc, from minute one, to get in the team, stay in the team and lead the team to promotion.

Appreciate it's not as cut and dry as that but, basically, that's the gist. Pollock looked the part from the moment he made his debut at Exeter. Raw, but already effective and more to come.

I thought Southwell might have made it under Hurst - didn't he score a hat-trick in an FA Trophy game once? No good looking at where he is now and saying 'he clearly wasn't good enough' because who knows how good he could've gone on to be with full-time Football League-standard coaching?

Charlie I'Anson also looked the part in the early days of Scott & Hurst. Can't remember the circumstances around his departure though.

Quoted from Lincoln Mariner 56

Watched Goundry and Adlard play for Bridlington at Lincoln United a couple of weeks back and the step up from playing youth football to even clubs at this level is quite considerable particularly the physical side of the game.

Goundry was surprisingly playing midfield and had a decent first half but second half was not so prominent and had the misfortune of losing the ball which resulted in an equalising goal. Think Adlard scored but missed two or three pretty easy chances when put through one on one. For me he was very quiet and not demanding of the ball or his teammates and did lack any physical presence.

Of the two Goundry seems to have the better potential as couldn’t see anything in Adlard’s performance that made me think he could make the grade. Hope the lad goes on to prove me wrong and in reality it’s a judgement made on seeing one performance and everyone has poor games so hopefully I saw him on a bad day.

Quoted from diehardmariner

But if we consistently take the approach that we can't afford to carry passengers, so to speak, we'll never truly develop our own players - not on a regular basis anyway.

As long as we see them as a drain on the budget, passengers etc. they'll always be just that.  I fully appreciate budget constraints and that we simply have to cut our cloth accordingly, but if we're only going to ever give one-year contracts to lads at 17/18 and release them unless they've established themselves in the first team then we'll always be disappointed.

The vast majority of professional footballers aren't anywhere near ready for first team action at 18, 19, even 20.  When they graduate from the youth team they're still kids pretty much.  Their physical, technical and tactical development has only just begun.  We give them 12 months to adjust, continue to develop and make an impact.  Simply not long enough for the absolute vast majority.

My personal view is that anyone deemed good enough to get a professional contract from the youth team should have a two-year contract as a minimum.  I know it's absolute worlds apart but the likes of Man Utd, Liverpool etc. don't issue one-year contracts to youth players because they know it's not enough.  The rare occasions in recent season where we have given time for the young lads to develop it has produced first teamers (Clifton and Wright).  The only one who progressed ahead of his time was Pollock, who was physically years ahead of his peers and a bit of an anomaly in that sense.

Of course the golden ticket is you get a transfer fee from a youth team graduate and can then reinvest that in both the set-up and then maybe the funding of some of the contracts for the new graduates.   Unfortunately we saw our recent football fortune on that front eaten up...