Football Academy

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Originally Posted by higgins

For the record, I want Sporting Fingal to be a success and I don't want any football club to go out of business.
My problem with what you are saying is you think that Fingal for some reason are going to bring through a load of players of LOI quality.

Have you any idea of the youth setups are current clubs ???

If these players are as good as you seem to think they will be on a plane at 16 and playing for english clubs. You won't have the pick of the players no matter what amount of money you pay them. I can only speak about Shelbourne but every year we have players who go across to english clubs rather than fight to get into the Shelbourne first team. You're left with very few that will make the grade at the top of the LOI. IF you want to be like Wexford and success is not high up your list of priorities then you'll do ok but if you want to compete for silverware you're never going to have the talent coming through a youth system as the best of them will be across the water at age 16.

I'm not saying buying players is an issue, it's part of football but you seem to think you're more like a Wexford than a Drogheda.

You're not!!!

You're spending more than most LOI first division teams on wages.

The last stop on the metro is Lissenhall isn't it ??
You put a stadium there you're screwed,, as you would be if you use the academy site on Turvey avenue. The upcoming LAP for Swords should provide you with a better piece of land in a more central location. If that happens then I believe you will be successful but only through continued spending of money and buying your way to some success while you wait for the stadium to be built. As long as you have a backer there's nothing wrong with spending money.

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Lets pick these off bit by bit:
1. Lots of new players result just from the presence of an academy. In Holland for instance the football academy is as ubiquitous as the football pitch and they have produced more pros per head than anyone in Europe. Admittedly it won't take long before EPL scouts hear about this and they will probably come shopping for the 16 year olds. However, an academy bursts open opportunities for "late developers" and these usually slip through the nets. Again I'd point to the Rosenburg model.:cool:

2. You are confusing short-term and long-term and have been doing so from your first reply to my post. First of all there is no SFFC academy because it ain't been built yet. Now where is Sporting Fingal meant to get players until then? Obviously they have to be signed, and having a million quid for signings doesn't mean a million quid will be used to set the club up and get promotion within the first 2 seasons. I'd have to be an idiot to thinl the 1st team were magicked out of an academy that doesn't exist yet dontcha think?:confused: So yes, RIGHT NOW, we are like Drogheda. Soon we will be like Wexford

3. What is my knowledge of LOI teams dalliances with youth football got to do with anything. The better youth set-ups are Shelbourne and Cork City. But SFFC and WYFC will both out-perform these eventually because they are taking the proper steps and setting up an actual academy - the only way to actually raise football standards. I don't like what I've seen in terms of coach education here. The FAI regional officers have made some in-roads but there's a lot (mostly) of stubborness and orthodoxy out there.:mad:

4. Why do you think Wexford won't be successful. It takes time to move a whole population catchment upwards in terms of football standards. So they will have their successes soon enough and I'd say will get promoted inside 5 years. Good luck to them because they are doing it the right way around.

5. The Lissenhall location is getting closer and closer to town each day, Swords is expanding and you can see the last Metro stop will have a Park and Ride facility as well as whole bunch of residential development. However, I guess the location is not decided yet. John O'Briens words are revelatory insofar as no stadium exists yet in design terms.

Finally I'm not trying to goad anyone, just provoke debate about this clubs identity, as a community based club. Too many of the clubs in Dublin have messed the fans around by moving willy-nilly and allowing petty politics to not allow sufficient efforts into getting backers who would put them in good standing to purchase stadia. I can name 4 of the Dublin clubs as doing this, hopefully SFFC will not. I get to complain because I've been burned before (let's not talk of it). Also I am a graduate of UCD. I remember bleak days in Belfield park as one of 200 souls, a man and a dog. Its good to see that club at least making an effort to market themselves as a team for the area not just a team for the students.

Domestic Football needs a shake-up. If it takes for some of the clubs clinging to the crappy old ideas going out of business then so be it.
You know these ideas "our fans will follow us anywhere", "it doesn't matter where we play", "we're too poor to buy the stadium", and "ah sure the kids will be grand if they get bolicked from the sideline".

Rant over

Rosenborg play in Norway
You do know there are different rules in Norway regarding the movement of their younger players ??

For your information the last few years have not been great for Rosenborg.

I'm not knocking what you're doing, hope it works.
I just have a problem with you knocking other clubs when its clear you know little or nothing about what is going on in the LOI

I'm not knocking what you're doing, hope it works.
I just have a problem with you knocking other clubs when its clear you know little or nothing about what is going on in the LOI[/quote]


Look bud I can tell u are a serious football fan and all that it entails. However, it's not up to me to prove to you I know what I'm talking about. I just do, and if you think otherwise its up to you to prove it.

I'm going to take your comment on face-value: which is to accept you don't understand my points rather than you are REFUSING to acknowledge them. The latter is tempting because most LOI fans live in holes with 3 inches of peripheral vision and my arguments hold the mirror up to whats wrong with the LOI. When you next go on holidays (anywhere on continental Europe will do) find out where the nearest academy is and visit it. You will generally find you are welcomed in. It will help you broaden your mind to different approaches to teaching football than the striped pyjamas, pencil moustache and medicine ball approach employed by LOI clubs and their Youth set-ups. I'm perfectly within my rights to point out the poverty of coaching and player development in Ireland - and I will not be censored.

Oh, and there's ways and means around all the academy rules. Arsenal FC recently grabbed a 16 yo kid called Nortvedt out of Norway. You can be critical of Rosenburg but they are always in the CL groups, and didn't they draw away with Chelsea to usher Maurinho out of post?

Also EPL clubs would be happier to leave the players "on loan" in the LOI until they are in their 20s if player education and coaching standards were raised and that is what SFFC is trying to do too....:) time will tell.

You know, lets just say dido. Nuff said

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Originally Posted by Santry_Goonshow

Yes, you are right I think - Morton will be used (owned by the Council) for 2-3 years. The new stadium, form my understanding, will be built very close to the northern most stop of the Metro but not far from the academy at Turvey. I'm not 100% sure but I think the Councillors are yet to approve the site for the academy. I don't know how well developed the plans are for the stadium. Reading quotes from John O'Brien (club secretary) in the Indo you get the feeling that the stadium is still a work in progress. He spoke about a 10,000 all seater but then said something about this being tempered with realism about the likely size of the fanbase.

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3 years i here is the plan Turvey has a few objections from the Bird watchers and local resadents because there waiting for a foot path in donabate for 20 years, dont ask long story, the Academy will happen and will be a great thing for the fastest grown erea in Ireland. with the help from another partner were all forgeting THE NDSL. they already have an academy up and running for the last 9 years and with one of the biggest School boy leagues in Ireland from 8 to 18s the talent is already there.

Just watched the NDSL under 13 Kennedy cup squad play a frindly at 10am this morning 7 of the team have been in the ndsl Acadmey from under 9s and are made up of ndsl teams from Swords Cel, Portmarknock,Ashbourne,Clontarf,to name but a few some of these kids have great futures ahead of them and will be knocking on Sportings Acadmey in a few years.

Lads the NDSL representative teams are usually a lot inferior to the DDSL team.If you are looking for players worthy of playing EL football I think you will find them in the DDSL. Most top quality players in the NDSL have been poached or move of their own accord to the DDSL by the team they are 12 or 13.

Community opposed to soccer academy plan

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Originally Posted by Raheny Red

Community opposed to soccer academy plan

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Try to contain your glee there. Wherever the academy and stadium eventually go there will be objectors. 1000 signatures out of 9000 ppl in Donabate

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Originally Posted by Santry_Goonshow

Try to contain your glee there. Wherever the academy and stadium eventually go there will be objectors. 1000 signatures out of 9000 ppl in Donabate

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Only posted up here just incase someone would be interested in reading the article. Glee :rolleyes:

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Originally Posted by Raheny Red

Only posted up here just incase someone would be interested in reading the article. Glee :rolleyes:

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Enjoy it while you can.

As we sang today "Where's your mon-ey gone, [where is your money gone]":p

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Originally Posted by Santry_Goonshow

The latter is tempting because most LOI fans live in holes with 3 inches of peripheral vision and my arguments hold the mirror up to whats wrong with the LOI.

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It's comments such as the one above that I have trouble with. LOI fans are used to new fans, new managers, new directors, new owners, new clubs all saying how great things are going to be but things don't always work out in the LOI :)

Hopefully things go as you say, I'd be delighted for the LOI if they did.

I just think you have a very narrow minded view towards other clubs. Maybe you should learn a little more about the LOI's other clubs and put some of these ideas Sporting are working on into action before you go throwing stones!!

We've all had ideas at one stage or another and many clubs still do so you're not alone.

Rosenborg are not always in the Champions League!! They used to be but not over the last 4 years or so, think they only made Intertoto this time round.

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Originally Posted by drummerboy

Lads the NDSL representative teams are usually a lot inferior to the DDSL team.If you are looking for players worthy of playing EL football I think you will find them in the DDSL. Most top quality players in the NDSL have been poached or move of their own accord to the DDSL by the team they are 12 or 13.

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Fact DDSL prem sides only would be better, but with the top clubs in the DDSL from city and and south side they would not be much use to Sporting.
with the ndsl academy Rep squads are picked trought the acadmey witch gives every child a chance to be picked unlike DDSL where each year Kennedy cup teams are made up of the few top clubs.
the spotring Acadmey will be set up in the same way witch will give players in the ndsl Acadmey something to work towards.

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Originally Posted by higgins

It's comments such as the one above that I have trouble with. LOI fans are used to new fans, new managers, new directors, new owners, new clubs all saying how great things are going to be but things don't always work out in the LOI :) Hopefully things go as you say, I'd be delighted for the LOI if they did. I just think you have a very narrow minded view towards other clubs. Maybe you should learn a little more about the LOI's other clubs and put some of these ideas Sporting are working on into action before you go throwing stones!! We've all had ideas at one stage or another and many clubs still do so you're not alone. Rosenborg are not always in the Champions League!! They used to be but not over the last 4 years or so, think they only made Intertoto this time round.

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I will gallantly stop throwing stones as you say when LOI fans stop saying that SFFC cannot work, will not work, has no fansbase, is threatening the other clubs, is a waste of public money. I was trying to point out facts:
1. That its going to be a community based club - Fingal might be a shakey "identity" for people but it could grow into something big
2. That it will have a supply of players and help junior football leagues thru the academy and these players getting thru will re-inforce the academy
3. That it will attract a big amount of fans with a thrist for soccer that was never quenched by other clubs
4. That it has the potential (alng with Wexford) to create sustainable clubs

After all Darwin said the birds with the short beak genes had to die off if the flock moved to the mudflats. What domestic soccer needs is a nice cold snap and the old and infirm will have to reform or die off. Its evolution man. You might not like the message but at least engage with the facts that LOI soccer has been deficient and needs a KUTA

What are the people behind the scenes expecting, attendance wise, each fortnight?

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Originally Posted by Raheny Red

What are the people behind the scenes expecting, attendance wise, each fortnight?

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Its much too early to say. There's a fair crowd coming from around Santry, a lot of people leave walking to local housing estates. There's a bunch of people from Blanchardstown. The Ultras come from Rivervalley.

The club will only stabilise when the move to Swords happens. being at the end of a Metro stop will be a boon, especially if Metro West allows the Blanch ranks to grow.

One from Rush. :D