Huddersfield Town recently announced their plan to downgrade their academy from grade two to grade four. The decision has been met with hostility from some fans and media critics.
I can understand the anger and frustration, particularly for those connected to the kids that have been let go. However, I also think the club have made the right move and I’ll explain why I think that in this article.
What’s actually happening to Town’s academy
It was occasionally reported as the club closing down the academy but that’s not true. The teams for under 16s and downwards are being disbanded but the under 18s and under 23s will continue in a slightly altered fashion.
This means that Town will bring in players who are in their late teens to join the youth setup, rather than recruiting younger lads from the Huddersfield area.
I don’t know the specifics but I presume most of the lads we bring in now will be taken from other club’s youth systems, either by paying transfer fees or hoovering up those rejected by the bigger teams.
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Why something had to change
I’m not an expert on youth football, but my understanding is that the bigger teams forced through a rule change that introduced the EPPP (Elite Player Performance Program). This set of changes meant big clubs could poach top talent from smaller teams with minimal compensation payments.
The change was voted through due something akin to a bribe being paid to the smaller clubs, so they could have a short-term gain to balance out the long-term damage these changes would cause them. Town opposed the change, seeing that EPPP puts smaller clubs at a disadvantage.
The other issue Town have is being close to the two Manchester clubs, both of whom invest significant sums in recruiting kids at a young age and bringing them through their academies.
Town don’t have the resources or the coaching setup to be able to compete with these giant clubs (even with the Premier League millions) so lose out on top local talent. Even if they do manage to attract a decent prospect, they could be poached away by another club later in their development in exchange for a fairly meagre compensation payment.
The players that have been coming out of Town’s academy in recent years have rarely been good enough for our first team. Most of them go to lower-league clubs on loan and are never seen in a Town shirt again.
The academy’s contribution to the community
Local kids getting to play for Town’s youth teams is a nice way for the club to support the community and help create a bond between the club and the town. However, that’s not the purpose of the academy. It’s a factory, designed to churn out first-team quality players. Or it should be at least.
The social benefits of having the academy are a byproduct of the clubs attempts to find the very best possible players The academy rejects hundreds of players every season, breaking boys’ hearts and smashing their dreams of playing professional football. It’s not there to do good, it’s there to create value
If the money spent on the academy is primarily to help out kids in the HD postcode then there are much better ways to do this. For example, the money could go on expanding the existing school breakfasts campaigns. Kids that eat well before school concentrate better in class and get better educational outcomes.
The Premier League money doesn’t come into this decision
Getting promoted meant Town now have a huge amount of cash coming in, but that doesn’t change this decision. Or, perhaps it makes it an even better choice. The standard in the Premier League is such that we can’t fill the gaps in our squad with kids from the academy. We weren’t often managing it in the Championship.
Being in the top flight means it even less likely that the current setup will deliver players of a good enough quality, if a player is showing signs of being good enough for the Premier League then they’ll got spotted by one of the big boys and leave Town’s youth system before getting a professional contract.
I’ve heard some people arguing the case that we should have upgraded to the top category of youth academy. This means providing living spaces, education, and many other hoops which bring significant extra costs. It would risk being a colossal waste of money.
Given the current academy is providing poor value for money, why would Dean Hoyle throw even more money at the problem.
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It makes sense to trust Dean Hoyle
Dean Hoyle’s success with the Card Factory was based around him finding another way to sell greetings cards. Rather than buy stock from the existing producers at vastly inflated prices he went abroad, sourced his own supplier and passed the savings on his customers.
Huddersfield Town’s recent success started when Dean Hoyle went abroad and found a manager that did things differently. He moved away from the managerial merry go round of the same faces and found an alternative.
This academy decision is a similar scenario. The accepted way of doing things is to run an academy and try and bring through kids from a young age and bring them into your first team when they’re ready. Dean has seen that this system isn’t working and has decided to go a different way.
Reasons the downgrade could be a positive change
- Town will no longer have to compete with the big teams to sign kids
- The money spent on the academy can be diverted into signing talented players from other club’s academies
- We can stock the two remaining youth teams with the best young players we can find
- David Wagner believes the change will be an improvement because the current setup can’t compete with other clubs in our area
The future for Town’s academy
Harry Bunn, Philip Billing, and Tommy Smith are the most recent players to have made the transition from academy to the first team and all of them joined late after playing youth football in another club’s academy. I think we’ll see a lot more of this.
The downgrade of the academy doesn’t have to mean a step backwards, it could result in a huge increase in the number of quality players graduating from the under-23 squad into the first team.
It’s obviously a shame for the lads that have been let go by Town, but the harsh reality is that the majority wouldn’t have made it anyway. Those that are destined to make it will more than likely find another academy more than happy to get a decent player without having to pay compensation.
It’s possible I’ll look back on this article in years to come and think I was a fool for being so positive about this change, but I doubt that. The academy has been struggling to produce enough players for a long time, so a change was needed. I trust Dean Hoyle and the rest of the staff to make this new system work.
Dean Hoyle’s Radio Leeds interview
My initial reaction about this change was uncertainty. It wasn’t until I heard Dean Hoyle’s interview that I realised the situation we were in and the need for things to change. I’d recommend watching the video below before making your mind up about this move.
Academies don’t produce as much as they should do except for your big clubs (these clubs snatch the biggest talents and produce more than the small clubs) and, even when they do, the youngsters don’t get first-team football at the recommend regularity for them to develop. Town’s academy didn’t produce so why spend on it when the money can be spent elsewhere.