Football Focus

[stannyblade]

Absolute disgrace. As someone has said on another forum I go on in a few years time you could get 3 teams promoted from league one who finished mid table as all the top teams were B teams that cant go up.

 

They are only interested in the Premier league.

[BoD]

We used to call them the reserve teams and they had a league of their own.

[cary hill]

thoughts on this ?

 

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/27289819

 

 

"The Football League is the oldest and greatest professional football league in the world. The FA Commission, which did not consult with a single football supporter group, plans to fill the lower leagues with Premier League B teams and have up to eight loaned players per club. This would completely destroy the fabric of the Football League and its integrity as a competition. Please take a moment to let the FA know that you will not stand by and watch them ruin our national sport forever."

 

"The FA's (specifically Greg Dyke's) plan for B teams to enter our football pyramid will see even more non-league clubs go to the wall and will punish clubs lower in the pyramid purely to keep the big clubs happy.

I believe that all clubs, regardless of their size, deserve equal respect and Dyke's plans are a slap in the face to the tens of thousands of people involved in the lower regions of the football pyramid."

 

"Greg Dykes proposal for 'B' teams in the English Football Pyramid will ruin years of tradition and ruin English football for the real fans. Let's be the voice for the real every day football fan."

 

Get signing one or more of these petitions at http://www.change.org/en-GB/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=b+leagues

 

 

After all it only took Spain 50 years having of B teams to win the World Cup

 

If the one of the core objectives of this badly thought out plan is to improve the England team, it is our third world knowledge of coaching that needs to be addressed at all levels to nurture young talent properly, until that changes messing with the "Pyramid" is just the football equivalent of moving deckchairs on the Titanic.

Edited May 8, 2014 by cary hill

[Oakydoke]

We used to call them the reserve teams and they had a league of their own.

The problem is that what were once reserve teams are now restricted to the under-21 competition.

There are talented young English players who progress through the club youth ranks and as they get older get stuck in the under-21 team, unable to break through into the first team, where they would gain much more experience. This largely due to the amount of foreign talent present at various levels within the club, especially in the first team.

Not all of them would make it if given the chance, but the result is that many who might have made it are denied the opportunity and the national team ends up with a shrinking pool of first team experienced talent.

 

The B team idea is that the top clubs are able to field a team of their top reserve and youth players and have them playing and gaining experienced at a more competitive level and against older players.

However this pans out, something radical has to be done to reverse the downward trend of the number of English players turning out for the top clubs, therefore damaging the national team's future prospects.

[Oakydoke]

"

 If the one of the core objectives of this badly thought out plan is to improve the England team, it is our third world knowledge of coaching that needs to be addressed at all levels to nurture young talent properly.

I was under the impression that a condemnation of the quality of coaching was also a key part of this inquiry?

[cary hill]

I was under the impression that a condemnation of the quality of coaching was also a key part of this inquiry?

 

I agree it gets a mention at the bottom of the BBC summary but I'm still mystified by this bit:

 

"Commission members point to the fact that clubs in Spain, France and Germany all play B teams in competitive leagues - thought to be a big factor in those countries developing talent."

 

Who thinks this? The Commission members? Most of these B teams apparently generate little enthusiasm and are watched by three men and dog in countries such as Spain.

 

I still think bringing our coaching methods and knowledge in the 21st century for talented English youngsters so that they are not ruined almost before they've begun would be a better starting point than fiddling with the football pyramid.

Edited May 9, 2014 by cary hill

[AndrewC]

Lets be honest. The FA and Premiership care about one thing and one thing only. That's the big wodge of cash that Sky, BT, and overseas television rights hand over each year. in many ways the premiership and English football in general is adopting the WWE model of "sports entertainment". A few marque wrestlers clubs are promoted as the be all and end all. The rest are just cannon fodder. Chelsea v Man C is the main event and West Brom v Sunderland on the under card. You only have to listen to the commentary on Sky to realise just how geared to promoting the marque clubs the whole thing is. Its never Fulham won, its always the Marque club didn't do this, or didn't do that, it was an upset. bla bla bla. Super Sunday. All the hype. Everything is geared to pull in as many viewers, and generate as much advertising and commercial product revenue as possible.

 

The FA and Premiership now realise they can't sell enough marque matches in a week so having a B rotation is the next best thing. Back to the WWE. Raw & Smackdown. What better than to sell 2 Manu teams. It would also let the big clubs try an recoup some of their investment in their squad.

 

The biggest problem is the potential of any club playing any other club in cup ties. Without that there would be nothing to stop a Premiership or Championship club from operating or affiliating with a lower division club as a development entity. This is like most North American sports where they have farm teams.

 

How is this for a modified suggestion? Each club in the premiership "adopts" at least 3 lower and non-league clubs as development clubs. Development and reserve players are loaned out to these clubs. There is never more than a few players at each club so that in the event of the parent playing the development club in a cup tie, the starting line up can be set to prevent conflicts. The development club gets some players for free helping to reduce their costs, and also has the marketing ploy of promoting "come see tomorrows super stars today".

[The Lurker]

but the lower league clubs don't want to be farm teams for the premiership clubs. That kills their dreams of getting to the top flight - that dream may not be realistic in most cases, but when I used to regularly go and watch Northampton Town in the lower reaches in the mid to late 90s, Northampton played league matches against Fulham, Swansea, Cardiff, Burnley, West Brom, Stoke, Man City, so its not an impossible dream. In fact Northampton beat Swansea in a play off final one year, having beaten Cardiff in the semis. The local rag still referred to the one season that Northampton had in the top flight (ergo a relegation year) as the 1965/66 Glory Days. That dream would be lost.

[AndrewC]

but the lower league clubs don't want to be farm teams for the premiership clubs. That kills their dreams of getting to the top flight - that dream may not be realistic in most cases, but when I used to regularly go and watch Northampton Town in the lower reaches in the mid to late 90s, Northampton played league matches against Fulham, Swansea, Cardiff, Burnley, West Brom, Stoke, Man City, so its not an impossible dream. In fact Northampton beat Swansea in a play off final one year, having beaten Cardiff in the semis. The local rag still referred to the one season that Northampton had in the top flight (ergo a relegation year) as the 1965/66 Glory Days. That dream would be lost.

I don't think that would happen. The affiliation would only exist at the lowest level. Promotion from say league 2 to league 1 (or league 1 to championship) would force the end of the relationship. I'm not talking about having a full squad of farm players but maybe 4-6 per club. That is less than the average end of season turnover.  

[Hobby]

How is this for a modified suggestion? Each club in the premiership "adopts" at least 3 lower and non-league clubs as development clubs

 

Several of the big Premiership clubs were already looking at that, I remember reading about it about 6 months ago, though one club rather than three... the issue is that if that team does well and threatens to get promoted what do the "parent" club do? 

[peanuts]

"Commission members point to the fact that clubs in Spain, France and Germany all play B teams in competitive leagues - thought to be a big factor in those countries developing talent."

 

and what they fail to say is these countrys have had this system for decades yet how many world cups have they won ? 

 

the one thing that is missing from the whole report is the mention of coaches and coaching ? pour the millions from sky etc into grass roots football get the coaches properly trained not just gary from down the road whos son wants to play proper coaches on proper courses . then get the kids OFF full size pitches  with full size goals till they are atleast 14 concentrate on teaching them ball skills and positioning rather than the current wack it to the freakishly big kid for him to smash it past the 4ft keeper in a full size net 

[Ron Ron Ron]

"Commission members point to the fact that clubs in Spain, France and Germany all play B teams in competitive leagues - thought to be a big factor in those countries developing talent."

 

and what they fail to say is these countrys have had this system for decades yet how many world cups have they won ? 

Collectively in the last 25 years, the 3 countries you mention have won 3 out of the last 6 tournaments.  

Brazil won 2 of the others.

The remaining one was Italy, who only beat France on penalties, so it could easily have been 4 out of 6.

 

 

the one thing that is missing from the whole report is the mention of coaches and coaching ? 

Sorry, that's not true at all.

The woeful state of coaching and coaching performance is an important part of this commissions report and one of the 4 key areas being addressed.

The same with grass-root facilities, which is another of the 4 key areas.

The B teams suggestion (again, only one of the 4 key area) has been seized on by the media because it makes for a nice controversial story and is stirring up a bit of a hornets nest.

 

 

.

[peanuts]

from WSC

 

 enough said realy 

 

Disaster has struck in the Netherlands as well. This season for the first time B teams from Ajax, PSV and FC Twente have entered the Jupiler League, which is the second tier in Dutch football. It has not been a success. 

These teams have nothing to play for (they cannot get promoted, nor relegated) and have had completely different line-ups from one week to the other, as squads are created from players that are not part of the first team. This has had a negative influence on the fairness of the league, as there was a significant difference if you played a Jong (=Young) team before or after the first team had played. If the Jong team played earlier in the weekend managers were not allowed to take any risks with players that might make the first, whereas you might find yourself playing against all players that did not make the starting eleven of the first team if you played the Jong team later in the weekend. In total the three Jong teams used 136 (!!) different players.

Attendances have been really poor as well. As soon as the novelty wore off they dropped to well below 1,000 in a league that averages 4,000. One Monday night when all three Jong teams played at home their combined attendance was only 800.

Comment on 08-05-2014 10:18:29 by DangerousPie#909852

In Germany most of the B teams average less than 400 fans, and even this number is bulked up by away fans who get to cheer on their team in an empty stadium. What's telling is that since this article was published, the German lower leagues have been reformed TWICE to accommodate the B teams and another reform could be in the offing.

If the commission looked at how the system was working in Germany, they can't have looked very closely.

[peanuts]

Greg Dyke the football equivalent of Dr Beeching 

[Steve K]

I haven't read the report, let alone read it in full (and I'm guessing that not many others have yet, either), so I'm going to avoid jumping on the anti-Dyke bandwagon, as the national media and many here have done, not until I'm much better informed. However, it seems that Mr Dyke and his team have tried to identify areas of concern, and create a discussion document with several possible ideas for improving those areas.

 

I think we would mostly concur that promising English junior players, many of them at extremely successful clubs, disappear without trace by the age of 21 because their opportunities for 1st-team PL football are small or non-existent. Surely it is better to suggest one possible way in which young players could play competitive football than to suggest doing nothing at all. Yes, on reflection, putting them up against non-league blood-and-thunder teams might not be the ideal way to improve their skills, but at least they'd get a glimpse of the real world, where tattoos and Bentleys count for very little.

 

The other areas of concern, such as the lack of English coaching talent, and the need for support for grass-roots football, are also pretty uncontroversial, I should have thought - we can all see that something needs to be done, but what? At least this commission has got us all talking.

 

Another real area of concern to me (and as I say, I've only skimmed the news, so I don't know whether it was covered) is the scarcity of players who go on to become referees. We're all used to the likes of Shearer, Savage and so on, bemoaning in front of millions of MOTD viewers that the ref got a decision wrong because "he's never played the game". Well, why not get all these recently retired players with their big egos and bigger opinions to take a refereeing course, and show us all how it should be done? Personally, I think the current refs do a decent job under difficult circumstances, but we'll never know whether the ex-pros could do better until they give it a go!

Edited May 10, 2014 by Steve K

[Colin]

It's a nice idea about the refs, but wouldn't almost any ref who was a former player run the risk of being accused of some sort of bias, (eg Shearer awards a contentious penalty in a crucial match that has a bearing on his former club Newcastle's position). Conversely, any player who left a club after a bust-up or was released because they weren't good enough could also be accused of having an axe to grind. They'd obviously have to be kept away from directly refereeing games featuring their former teams (that could be VERY tricky where a much-travelled ex-player is involved), but come the end of the season when everything gets mathematical, as we all know, apparently irrelevant matches can influence or even decide very important issues. It would be a potential minefield - some very nasty accusations could fly in all directions.

[Calnefoxile]

Colin,

 

Doesn't happen in Cricket though, where a lot of the Umpires are ex-players.

 

Cheers

 

Neal.

[Steve K]

Possibly, Colin, but current referees are presumably also football fans who follow one club above all others - we just don't get to hear about it much. I'm not sure what, if any, bearing, this has on the matches at which they are allowed to officiate, but someone must have considered this. In the event they do appear to show bias, I dare say their boss would have something to say, and do, about it.

Edited May 10, 2014 by Steve K

[BoD]

It's also possible that the players wouldn't have the gonads to put themselves in a position to take the crap that they so gladly dished out as players.

[peanuts]

It's also possible that the players wouldn't have the gonads to put themselves in a position to take the crap that they so gladly dished out as players.

Tont Philiskirk currently coaching at Oldham tried it was on an accelerated promotion sceme run by the fa iirc he packed it up when he was at conferance level  

[colin penfold]

I dont think b teams per se are a bad idea, just incorporating them into the existing structure.

 

Why not have it as a stand alone entity playing at times which won't pinch attendances from the lower leagues, and could even allow a player to play a and b football in the same week

[SHMD]

Why can't Man Us B-Team was called "Bury" and play at Giggs lane?


Kev.
(Coat and scarf on, off out now.)

[peanuts]

Why can't Man Us B-Team was called "Bury" and play at Giggs lane?

 

 

Kev.

(Coat and scarf on, off out now.)

you may be closer to the truth than you think kev wouldnt be surprised if its all a smoke screen to soften us up for feeder teams in the lower leagues and will be dropped by the fa with them claiming to have "listened " to the fans then foist feeder teams on us as a faitacompliy . 

[Hobby]

I dont think b teams per se are a bad idea, just incorporating them into the existing structure.

 

Why not have it as a stand alone entity playing at times which won't pinch attendances from the lower leagues, and could even allow a player to play a and b football in the same week

 

You mean a Reserves League?!

[Stanley Melrose]

Just seen a Liverpool "fan" in the local (North east Derbyshire) supermarket.  How apt that he was wearing his team's third (or is it fourth or fifth) change shirt as it was black . . .

 

Stan