'There isn’t really the same opportunities for youngsters' (From Watford Observer)

Personally I am hoping the Pozzo's will see good reason to expand the 1st team
Italian coaching influence downwards, and even expand it once we are established in the Premier League. However I'm not going to imagine it will be without some casualties before then. Watfords reputation is good and I'm sure that any of current crop that don't get kept on still have an excellent chance of being picked up by other clubs, they know what's going on here and the lads are not to blame.

If your good enough you'll get in the team ! You've made a wise choice Gavin, good luck

Gavin , i hope you do well in colchester but like a lot of young players you were excellent when younger but think you find it much more difficult playing in a mans game.

Anyone else find typing into this comment box can be really slow, causing loads of typos where letters that are typed don't appear ? Also the page frequently crashing and having to be "recovered" ? Probably these ***** irritating adverts loading/running.

Good luck at Colchester Gavin. I'm sure you'll get a decent professional career from the game, but it wouldn't have happened for you at watford.

Hiho

Well well well ...a little bird told me that
Two things surprised our new patrons
When they got full control of the cathedral:

a). The books were in a far,far worse state than even slick accountants
Could heve envisaged

b). They were highly impressed with the Academy...a jewel well hidden.

Personally nothing surprises me these
Days when it comes to money and it's care.

More importantly is the Academy....surely the bedrock of a club of our size despite being twin with two cathedrals one in Spain nd the other in Italy.

Why then this on the surface strange decision to give up grade 1 academy status. And opt for nor the second tier but the third !?!?

I suspect this means either the academy is to be closed or more likely in my opinion. We will in future years
Be the source of all the choristers 3 cathedrals need.

Also what better than playing man u man c Chelsea etc youth teams ,singing with those of Spain and Italy's top flight???

Well I must go. Mr dithers ,our church warden is framing the now infamous set of safe keys....to hang above the
East gate to remind us the constant danger "of Ring fencing" and otherdubious financial jiggers pokery!

This will probablly be an un-popular comment but there you go! This sounds like very sour grapes! Since the Pozzo Familily took over the following Youth players have played in either pre season, Capital One Cup or the League:
Bond
Bonham
Bennett
Thompson
Hobain
Tumwa
Murray
Hamilton-Forbes
Connor Smith
Mingoia
And even Massey himself had a few pre season games to prove himself. They have all had a chance and some have done really well. Lets not forget that alot of the players coming in from Udin and Granada are also vey young so youth is deffinatly getting a chance! If Gavin was that good he would of A - Stayed and B - At least commanded a transfer fee! Yes its very sad that a young local lad has had to leave but lets not foget that youth are getting a chance and the club is evolving and sometimes these choices have to be made!

We never had Cat 1 status, we only applied for it then withdrew. We don't need Cat 1 to recruit in local area, Cat 2 is Cat 1's shadow and a waste of time. Cat 3 is sensible and manageable. The only player that has gone through Harefield that is likely to give Watford the kind of return they needed to justify the Cat 1 is Murray, and you need to be producing one or two of them a year, and in the current academy we don't have the next Murray, Mapps or Young, unfortunately. Who else has gone through Harefield and is now worth circa £1M plus ??? Who is in the current academy that has schooled via Harefield Academy that is knocking on the door ??? No one in the current U18 or in first year pro's, Connor "might" make it, but value less than £100k at mo, Britt might make it, but same. So how would we ever get a return on the £2.3M a year ??? We can recruit local and recruit via the triangle network of clubs much more sensibly. Some clubs like Wycombe disbanded their Academy all together as couldnt justify the cost. If Wycombe need a player they will source from non league and loans and free transfers. Matt Phillips was their jewel but again, one every so many years to justify expense. The other issue is that UK players just are not technically gifted, from 6 years old, throw boys into competitive environments, with screaming mums and dads on the sideline, desperate to Win and for Jonny to get scouted by Chelsea ! So pressure pressure from a young age, and the development stops. That's why England are poor !

bishopofwatford wrote:
Hiho

Well well well ...a little bird told me that
Two things surprised our new patrons
When they got full control of the cathedral:

a). The books were in a far,far worse state than even slick accountants
Could heve envisaged

b). They were highly impressed with the Academy...a jewel well hidden.

Personally nothing surprises me these
Days when it comes to money and it's care.

More importantly is the Academy....surely the bedrock of a club of our size despite being twin with two cathedrals one in Spain nd the other in Italy.

Why then this on the surface strange decision to give up grade 1 academy status. And opt for nor the second tier but the third !?!?

I suspect this means either the academy is to be closed or more likely in my opinion. We will in future years
Be the source of all the choristers 3 cathedrals need.

Also what better than playing man u man c Chelsea etc youth teams ,singing with those of Spain and Italy's top flight???

Well I must go. Mr dithers ,our church warden is framing the now infamous set of safe keys....to hang above the
East gate to remind us the constant danger "of Ring fencing" and otherdubious financial jiggers pokery!

**** you are irritating. If you've got something to say, say it, and drop this pathetic churchy twaddle. Has never been close to amusing and is now just plain embarrassing and irritating.

Sorry Gavin but you just weren't good enough for the Championship. Hence why you have dropped down a league.

@ChrisBottom16 says... Lots of younger players were given a chance pre-season and none stepped up to the plate. Maybe Mingoia did a little bit but that was it.

Holly68 wrote:
We never had Cat 1 status, we only applied for it then withdrew. We don't need Cat 1 to recruit in local area, Cat 2 is Cat 1's shadow and a waste of time. Cat 3 is sensible and manageable. The only player that has gone through Harefield that is likely to give Watford the kind of return they needed to justify the Cat 1 is Murray, and you need to be producing one or two of them a year, and in the current academy we don't have the next Murray, Mapps or Young, unfortunately. Who else has gone through Harefield and is now worth circa £1M plus ??? Who is in the current academy that has schooled via Harefield Academy that is knocking on the door ??? No one in the current U18 or in first year pro's, Connor "might" make it, but value less than £100k at mo, Britt might make it, but same. So how would we ever get a return on the £2.3M a year ??? We can recruit local and recruit via the triangle network of clubs much more sensibly. Some clubs like Wycombe disbanded their Academy all together as couldnt justify the cost. If Wycombe need a player they will source from non league and loans and free transfers. Matt Phillips was their jewel but again, one every so many years to justify expense. The other issue is that UK players just are not technically gifted, from 6 years old, throw boys into competitive environments, with screaming mums and dads on the sideline, desperate to Win and for Jonny to get scouted by Chelsea ! So pressure pressure from a young age, and the development stops. That's why England are poor !

.....plus of course under the new rules our cat 1 £1m+ talent could be pinched for peanuts anyway. More peanuts than cat 2 or 3, but still peanuts.

Dropping the cat 1 application has to be he right decision but the question is what do they now do to make the academy reasonably productive whilst also being financially efficient.

Pudil, Vydra, Abdi, Anya, Bia, ALL QUALITY ON THE BALL

Belleck, Cassetti, Fachone, Hall, Geijo, JURYS OUT OR NOT SEEN YET !

Mix these in with Taylor, Nosworthy, Hogg, Eustace, and we are class

Even Doyley, Yeates and Big Chris as back ups and with Manuel,in goal, a strong matchday squad of 18

You need strength in depth to get out championship

Plus any word on Angello, Neuton or Forestieri ???

This whole CAT 1 and CAT 3 grading is getting very boring!!!!! To be a CAT 1 club you have to pay an annual fee of £2.3 million just to enter which for Premier League clubs is a drob in the ocean due to TV revenue. e dont have any where near that spare cash floating around and we dont make that to invest. You have to offer pro contracts to a minimum of 20 youth players per season, which if you are Man U or Chelsea and have a hundred youth players is possible! If you have limited numbers like us its not possible. Even if we could offer pro contracts to 20 players they would all be on at least £500 a week minimum. That is a yearly figure of circa £480,000 per season for the 20 players! As a CAT 1 club you have to have a coach for every 7/8 players, where as a Cat 3 club its one coach per 11/12 players. So your now adding 3 or 4 new coaching wages to your club pay roll which if you said were £20,000 per year you adding £60,000 minimum to your wage bill. As a CAT1 club you also need to have an indoor and all weather pitch avaliable for every day of the year. We dont have these facilities so more money would have to be spent building and maintaining them! If you add the anual fee and the player and coaching wages together you have an annual cost of around £2.7 million pound. The last player we produced who had a good fee was Ashley Young who sold for £8/9 million. That was 5 years ago till we have Sean Murray. Take 5 years of CAT1 costs of £2.7 million per year for 5 years till the next top player and weve spent circ £13 million pounds. Now if you produce 1 player every 5 Years like we have and sell him for £8/9 million, yur still losing money! We know the club is losing around a million pond a month so 12 million a year give or take, it would be daft to add nearly another 3 million pounds for acadamy costs and even dafter to expect the Pozzo's to cover that as we have little track record of the acadamy actually working!

radio_rocking wrote:
Sorry Gavin but you just weren't good enough for the Championship. Hence why you have dropped down a league.

@ChrisBottom16 says... Lots of younger players were given a chance pre-season and none stepped up to the plate. Maybe Mingoia did a little bit but that was it.

Mornin bud. Mingoia played well when i saw him. Bond bar 1 punch did well last night with 2 great savess. Hamilton-Forbes looked a good passer and assured against Wealdstone. Connor Smith played well against Gillingham and against Palace. Thompson did ok last night an looked quite comfy. I think all of them have potential and with the Italian coaches and maybe a few loans we could get one or two decent players out of them. Agree regarding Massey, whenever i saw him there wasnt much there.

@ChrisBottom16 wrote:
This whole CAT 1 and CAT 3 grading is getting very boring!!!!! To be a CAT 1 club you have to pay an annual fee of £2.3 million just to enter which for Premier League clubs is a drob in the ocean due to TV revenue. e dont have any where near that spare cash floating around and we dont make that to invest. You have to offer pro contracts to a minimum of 20 youth players per season, which if you are Man U or Chelsea and have a hundred youth players is possible! If you have limited numbers like us its not possible. Even if we could offer pro contracts to 20 players they would all be on at least £500 a week minimum. That is a yearly figure of circa £480,000 per season for the 20 players! As a CAT 1 club you have to have a coach for every 7/8 players, where as a Cat 3 club its one coach per 11/12 players. So your now adding 3 or 4 new coaching wages to your club pay roll which if you said were £20,000 per year you adding £60,000 minimum to your wage bill. As a CAT1 club you also need to have an indoor and all weather pitch avaliable for every day of the year. We dont have these facilities so more money would have to be spent building and maintaining them! If you add the anual fee and the player and coaching wages together you have an annual cost of around £2.7 million pound. The last player we produced who had a good fee was Ashley Young who sold for £8/9 million. That was 5 years ago till we have Sean Murray. Take 5 years of CAT1 costs of £2.7 million per year for 5 years till the next top player and weve spent circ £13 million pounds. Now if you produce 1 player every 5 Years like we have and sell him for £8/9 million, yur still losing money! We know the club is losing around a million pond a month so 12 million a year give or take, it would be daft to add nearly another 3 million pounds for acadamy costs and even dafter to expect the Pozzo's to cover that as we have little track record of the acadamy actually working!

Good point, well made.

Mickey Quinn, not so thin wrote:

bishopofwatford wrote:
Hiho

Well well well ...a little bird told me that
Two things surprised our new patrons
When they got full control of the cathedral:

a). The books were in a far,far worse state than even slick accountants
Could heve envisaged

b). They were highly impressed with the Academy...a jewel well hidden.

Personally nothing surprises me these
Days when it comes to money and it's care.

More importantly is the Academy....surely the bedrock of a club of our size despite being twin with two cathedrals one in Spain nd the other in Italy.

Why then this on the surface strange decision to give up grade 1 academy status. And opt for nor the second tier but the third !?!?

I suspect this means either the academy is to be closed or more likely in my opinion. We will in future years
Be the source of all the choristers 3 cathedrals need.

Also what better than playing man u man c Chelsea etc youth teams ,singing with those of Spain and Italy's top flight???

Well I must go. Mr dithers ,our church warden is framing the now infamous set of safe keys....to hang above the
East gate to remind us the constant danger "of Ring fencing" and otherdubious financial jiggers pokery!

**** you are irritating. If you've got something to say, say it, and drop this pathetic churchy twaddle. Has never been close to amusing and is now just plain embarrassing and irritating.

oh dear who got out of the wrong side
Of someone's bed this morning. .?

I will do u a deal mickey Finn ...I never read your diatribe do me the ggracious honour as well

bishopofwatford wrote:

Mickey Quinn, not so thin wrote:

bishopofwatford wrote:
Hiho

Well well well ...a little bird told me that
Two things surprised our new patrons
When they got full control of the cathedral:

a). The books were in a far,far worse state than even slick accountants
Could heve envisaged

b). They were highly impressed with the Academy...a jewel well hidden.

Personally nothing surprises me these
Days when it comes to money and it's care.

More importantly is the Academy....surely the bedrock of a club of our size despite being twin with two cathedrals one in Spain nd the other in Italy.

Why then this on the surface strange decision to give up grade 1 academy status. And opt for nor the second tier but the third !?!?

I suspect this means either the academy is to be closed or more likely in my opinion. We will in future years
Be the source of all the choristers 3 cathedrals need.

Also what better than playing man u man c Chelsea etc youth teams ,singing with those of Spain and Italy's top flight???

Well I must go. Mr dithers ,our church warden is framing the now infamous set of safe keys....to hang above the
East gate to remind us the constant danger "of Ring fencing" and otherdubious financial jiggers pokery!

**** you are irritating. If you've got something to say, say it, and drop this pathetic churchy twaddle. Has never been close to amusing and is now just plain embarrassing and irritating.

oh dear who got out of the wrong side
Of someone's bed this morning. .?

I will do u a deal mickey Finn ...I never read your diatribe do me the ggracious honour as well

I try to avoid yours, like many i imagine, but sometimes I miss your name, like today. Do you think what you type is amusing (to anyone other than yourself) ?

Mickey Quinn, not so thin wrote:

bishopofwatford wrote:
Hiho

Well well well ...a little bird told me that
Two things surprised our new patrons
When they got full control of the cathedral:

a). The books were in a far,far worse state than even slick accountants
Could heve envisaged

b). They were highly impressed with the Academy...a jewel well hidden.

Personally nothing surprises me these
Days when it comes to money and it's care.

More importantly is the Academy....surely the bedrock of a club of our size despite being twin with two cathedrals one in Spain nd the other in Italy.

Why then this on the surface strange decision to give up grade 1 academy status. And opt for nor the second tier but the third !?!?

I suspect this means either the academy is to be closed or more likely in my opinion. We will in future years
Be the source of all the choristers 3 cathedrals need.

Also what better than playing man u man c Chelsea etc youth teams ,singing with those of Spain and Italy's top flight???

Well I must go. Mr dithers ,our church warden is framing the now infamous set of safe keys....to hang above the
East gate to remind us the constant danger "of Ring fencing" and otherdubious financial jiggers pokery!

**** you are irritating. If you've got something to say, say it, and drop this pathetic churchy twaddle. Has never been close to amusing and is now just plain embarrassing and irritating.

With you all the way there, Mickey

Mickey Quinn, not so thin wrote:

bishopofwatford wrote:

Mickey Quinn, not so thin wrote:

bishopofwatford wrote:
Hiho

Well well well ...a little bird told me that
Two things surprised our new patrons
When they got full control of the cathedral:

a). The books were in a far,far worse state than even slick accountants
Could heve envisaged

b). They were highly impressed with the Academy...a jewel well hidden.

Personally nothing surprises me these
Days when it comes to money and it's care.

More importantly is the Academy....surely the bedrock of a club of our size despite being twin with two cathedrals one in Spain nd the other in Italy.

Why then this on the surface strange decision to give up grade 1 academy status. And opt for nor the second tier but the third !?!?

I suspect this means either the academy is to be closed or more likely in my opinion. We will in future years
Be the source of all the choristers 3 cathedrals need.

Also what better than playing man u man c Chelsea etc youth teams ,singing with those of Spain and Italy's top flight???

Well I must go. Mr dithers ,our church warden is framing the now infamous set of safe keys....to hang above the
East gate to remind us the constant danger "of Ring fencing" and otherdubious financial jiggers pokery!

**** you are irritating. If you've got something to say, say it, and drop this pathetic churchy twaddle. Has never been close to amusing and is now just plain embarrassing and irritating.

oh dear who got out of the wrong side
Of someone's bed this morning. .?

I will do u a deal mickey Finn ...I never read your diatribe do me the ggracious honour as well

I try to avoid yours, like many i imagine, but sometimes I miss your name, like today. Do you think what you type is amusing (to anyone other than yourself) ?

Totally agree Mickey - I just scroll straight past his twaddle.

He should be renamed Bishop Basher of Watford.

Dr Johnny Fever wrote:

@ChrisBottom16 wrote:
This whole CAT 1 and CAT 3 grading is getting very boring!!!!! To be a CAT 1 club you have to pay an annual fee of £2.3 million just to enter which for Premier League clubs is a drob in the ocean due to TV revenue. e dont have any where near that spare cash floating around and we dont make that to invest. You have to offer pro contracts to a minimum of 20 youth players per season, which if you are Man U or Chelsea and have a hundred youth players is possible! If you have limited numbers like us its not possible. Even if we could offer pro contracts to 20 players they would all be on at least £500 a week minimum. That is a yearly figure of circa £480,000 per season for the 20 players! As a CAT 1 club you have to have a coach for every 7/8 players, where as a Cat 3 club its one coach per 11/12 players. So your now adding 3 or 4 new coaching wages to your club pay roll which if you said were £20,000 per year you adding £60,000 minimum to your wage bill. As a CAT1 club you also need to have an indoor and all weather pitch avaliable for every day of the year. We dont have these facilities so more money would have to be spent building and maintaining them! If you add the anual fee and the player and coaching wages together you have an annual cost of around £2.7 million pound. The last player we produced who had a good fee was Ashley Young who sold for £8/9 million. That was 5 years ago till we have Sean Murray. Take 5 years of CAT1 costs of £2.7 million per year for 5 years till the next top player and weve spent circ £13 million pounds. Now if you produce 1 player every 5 Years like we have and sell him for £8/9 million, yur still losing money! We know the club is losing around a million pond a month so 12 million a year give or take, it would be daft to add nearly another 3 million pounds for acadamy costs and even dafter to expect the Pozzo's to cover that as we have little track record of the acadamy actually working!

Good point, well made.

Thanks Bud

@ChrisBottom16 wrote:

Dr Johnny Fever wrote:

@ChrisBottom16 wrote:
This whole CAT 1 and CAT 3 grading is getting very boring!!!!! To be a CAT 1 club you have to pay an annual fee of £2.3 million just to enter which for Premier League clubs is a drob in the ocean due to TV revenue. e dont have any where near that spare cash floating around and we dont make that to invest. You have to offer pro contracts to a minimum of 20 youth players per season, which if you are Man U or Chelsea and have a hundred youth players is possible! If you have limited numbers like us its not possible. Even if we could offer pro contracts to 20 players they would all be on at least £500 a week minimum. That is a yearly figure of circa £480,000 per season for the 20 players! As a CAT 1 club you have to have a coach for every 7/8 players, where as a Cat 3 club its one coach per 11/12 players. So your now adding 3 or 4 new coaching wages to your club pay roll which if you said were £20,000 per year you adding £60,000 minimum to your wage bill. As a CAT1 club you also need to have an indoor and all weather pitch avaliable for every day of the year. We dont have these facilities so more money would have to be spent building and maintaining them! If you add the anual fee and the player and coaching wages together you have an annual cost of around £2.7 million pound. The last player we produced who had a good fee was Ashley Young who sold for £8/9 million. That was 5 years ago till we have Sean Murray. Take 5 years of CAT1 costs of £2.7 million per year for 5 years till the next top player and weve spent circ £13 million pounds. Now if you produce 1 player every 5 Years like we have and sell him for £8/9 million, yur still losing money! We know the club is losing around a million pond a month so 12 million a year give or take, it would be daft to add nearly another 3 million pounds for acadamy costs and even dafter to expect the Pozzo's to cover that as we have little track record of the acadamy actually working!

Good point, well made.

Thanks Bud

Not going to argue with most of your points as I am not as informed. I don't disagree with you sentiments either. However, it is wrong to just quote Ashley Young (the figures you quote are wrong also) What about the recent sales of Marvin and Aidy?

Bright 1 wrote:

@ChrisBottom16 wrote:

Dr Johnny Fever wrote:

@ChrisBottom16 wrote:
This whole CAT 1 and CAT 3 grading is getting very boring!!!!! To be a CAT 1 club you have to pay an annual fee of £2.3 million just to enter which for Premier League clubs is a drob in the ocean due to TV revenue. e dont have any where near that spare cash floating around and we dont make that to invest. You have to offer pro contracts to a minimum of 20 youth players per season, which if you are Man U or Chelsea and have a hundred youth players is possible! If you have limited numbers like us its not possible. Even if we could offer pro contracts to 20 players they would all be on at least £500 a week minimum. That is a yearly figure of circa £480,000 per season for the 20 players! As a CAT 1 club you have to have a coach for every 7/8 players, where as a Cat 3 club its one coach per 11/12 players. So your now adding 3 or 4 new coaching wages to your club pay roll which if you said were £20,000 per year you adding £60,000 minimum to your wage bill. As a CAT1 club you also need to have an indoor and all weather pitch avaliable for every day of the year. We dont have these facilities so more money would have to be spent building and maintaining them! If you add the anual fee and the player and coaching wages together you have an annual cost of around £2.7 million pound. The last player we produced who had a good fee was Ashley Young who sold for £8/9 million. That was 5 years ago till we have Sean Murray. Take 5 years of CAT1 costs of £2.7 million per year for 5 years till the next top player and weve spent circ £13 million pounds. Now if you produce 1 player every 5 Years like we have and sell him for £8/9 million, yur still losing money! We know the club is losing around a million pond a month so 12 million a year give or take, it would be daft to add nearly another 3 million pounds for acadamy costs and even dafter to expect the Pozzo's to cover that as we have little track record of the acadamy actually working!

Good point, well made.

Thanks Bud

Not going to argue with most of your points as I am not as informed. I don't disagree with you sentiments either. However, it is wrong to just quote Ashley Young (the figures you quote are wrong also) What about the recent sales of Marvin and Aidy?

Hi mate thanks for the reply! The figures were as close as could get without insider knowledge. Your right to bring up Marv and Aidy. Aidy went for jus under 2 million plus add ons if Reading stay up etc. I imagine that will go to help pay the wages of the loanees as i understand that we are paying 50/50 with Udinese and Granada?! Regarding Marv he went for 3 million. However as he was sold in January when we had Bankrupt Baz in charge who we know struggled with money i imagine the Sordell money was used to pay the million pound or so were losing per month. I could be wrong but that would of lasted 3 months ie paid up to May when we know the club was on the brink of administration and baz was tryin to sel Mapps. I could be wrong but its a coincedence that the marv money ran out just as we were trying to get rid of Mapp and the administration people were lurking! If this is the case that 5 million is gone and wed have to sell another asset to fund the CAT 1 status. Bar Murray there arnt at the moment any coming through although hopefully now with Zola and some Italian coaching staff we can produce some home grown quality!! Oh and regarding Marv we actually nicked him from Fulhams acadamy.

@ChrisBottom16 wrote:

Bright 1 wrote:

@ChrisBottom16 wrote:

Dr Johnny Fever wrote:

@ChrisBottom16 wrote:
This whole CAT 1 and CAT 3 grading is getting very boring!!!!! To be a CAT 1 club you have to pay an annual fee of £2.3 million just to enter which for Premier League clubs is a drob in the ocean due to TV revenue. e dont have any where near that spare cash floating around and we dont make that to invest. You have to offer pro contracts to a minimum of 20 youth players per season, which if you are Man U or Chelsea and have a hundred youth players is possible! If you have limited numbers like us its not possible. Even if we could offer pro contracts to 20 players they would all be on at least £500 a week minimum. That is a yearly figure of circa £480,000 per season for the 20 players! As a CAT 1 club you have to have a coach for every 7/8 players, where as a Cat 3 club its one coach per 11/12 players. So your now adding 3 or 4 new coaching wages to your club pay roll which if you said were £20,000 per year you adding £60,000 minimum to your wage bill. As a CAT1 club you also need to have an indoor and all weather pitch avaliable for every day of the year. We dont have these facilities so more money would have to be spent building and maintaining them! If you add the anual fee and the player and coaching wages together you have an annual cost of around £2.7 million pound. The last player we produced who had a good fee was Ashley Young who sold for £8/9 million. That was 5 years ago till we have Sean Murray. Take 5 years of CAT1 costs of £2.7 million per year for 5 years till the next top player and weve spent circ £13 million pounds. Now if you produce 1 player every 5 Years like we have and sell him for £8/9 million, yur still losing money! We know the club is losing around a million pond a month so 12 million a year give or take, it would be daft to add nearly another 3 million pounds for acadamy costs and even dafter to expect the Pozzo's to cover that as we have little track record of the acadamy actually working!

Good point, well made.

Thanks Bud

Not going to argue with most of your points as I am not as informed. I don't disagree with you sentiments either. However, it is wrong to just quote Ashley Young (the figures you quote are wrong also) What about the recent sales of Marvin and Aidy?

Hi mate thanks for the reply! The figures were as close as could get without insider knowledge. Your right to bring up Marv and Aidy. Aidy went for jus under 2 million plus add ons if Reading stay up etc. I imagine that will go to help pay the wages of the loanees as i understand that we are paying 50/50 with Udinese and Granada?! Regarding Marv he went for 3 million. However as he was sold in January when we had Bankrupt Baz in charge who we know struggled with money i imagine the Sordell money was used to pay the million pound or so were losing per month. I could be wrong but that would of lasted 3 months ie paid up to May when we know the club was on the brink of administration and baz was tryin to sel Mapps. I could be wrong but its a coincedence that the marv money ran out just as we were trying to get rid of Mapp and the administration people were lurking! If this is the case that 5 million is gone and wed have to sell another asset to fund the CAT 1 status. Bar Murray there arnt at the moment any coming through although hopefully now with Zola and some Italian coaching staff we can produce some home grown quality!! Oh and regarding Marv we actually nicked him from Fulhams acadamy.

Good posts Chris, just my pennys worth, I think out of the fifty odd players produced very few are gems so to speak, so all this production line talk is utter tosh. The Pozzos are shrewd operators, and if the end result is the first half against Brum, then I'll take the new system over anything fom the recent past.

Bright 1 wrote:

@ChrisBottom16 wrote:

Dr Johnny Fever wrote:

@ChrisBottom16 wrote:
This whole CAT 1 and CAT 3 grading is getting very boring!!!!! To be a CAT 1 club you have to pay an annual fee of £2.3 million just to enter which for Premier League clubs is a drob in the ocean due to TV revenue. e dont have any where near that spare cash floating around and we dont make that to invest. You have to offer pro contracts to a minimum of 20 youth players per season, which if you are Man U or Chelsea and have a hundred youth players is possible! If you have limited numbers like us its not possible. Even if we could offer pro contracts to 20 players they would all be on at least £500 a week minimum. That is a yearly figure of circa £480,000 per season for the 20 players! As a CAT 1 club you have to have a coach for every 7/8 players, where as a Cat 3 club its one coach per 11/12 players. So your now adding 3 or 4 new coaching wages to your club pay roll which if you said were £20,000 per year you adding £60,000 minimum to your wage bill. As a CAT1 club you also need to have an indoor and all weather pitch avaliable for every day of the year. We dont have these facilities so more money would have to be spent building and maintaining them! If you add the anual fee and the player and coaching wages together you have an annual cost of around £2.7 million pound. The last player we produced who had a good fee was Ashley Young who sold for £8/9 million. That was 5 years ago till we have Sean Murray. Take 5 years of CAT1 costs of £2.7 million per year for 5 years till the next top player and weve spent circ £13 million pounds. Now if you produce 1 player every 5 Years like we have and sell him for £8/9 million, yur still losing money! We know the club is losing around a million pond a month so 12 million a year give or take, it would be daft to add nearly another 3 million pounds for acadamy costs and even dafter to expect the Pozzo's to cover that as we have little track record of the acadamy actually working!

Good point, well made.

Thanks Bud

Not going to argue with most of your points as I am not as informed. I don't disagree with you sentiments either. However, it is wrong to just quote Ashley Young (the figures you quote are wrong also) What about the recent sales of Marvin and Aidy?

We have averaged about £2.5m per year over the last 10 years from the sales of academy grown players which means at best we have broken even - going forward it will be much more difficult to get the £1m plus for homegrown academy players as they can be stolen by other clubs for peanuts before they reach full resale value. The question is would we have ended up better off not spending that money and having to play academy players in our first team that often were clearly not up to the task or would we have done better by using the money to buy and sell players that were ready. Nobody will ever know - but going forward it will be much more difficult to make academies pay for themselves especially if you are not in the premier league. I for one like the fact that we have a first rate academy but from a financial point of view do not have the figures to see whether we have actually ever had a financial benefit from it.

Bright 1 wrote:

@ChrisBottom16 wrote:

Dr Johnny Fever wrote:

@ChrisBottom16 wrote:
This whole CAT 1 and CAT 3 grading is getting very boring!!!!! To be a CAT 1 club you have to pay an annual fee of £2.3 million just to enter which for Premier League clubs is a drob in the ocean due to TV revenue. e dont have any where near that spare cash floating around and we dont make that to invest. You have to offer pro contracts to a minimum of 20 youth players per season, which if you are Man U or Chelsea and have a hundred youth players is possible! If you have limited numbers like us its not possible. Even if we could offer pro contracts to 20 players they would all be on at least £500 a week minimum. That is a yearly figure of circa £480,000 per season for the 20 players! As a CAT 1 club you have to have a coach for every 7/8 players, where as a Cat 3 club its one coach per 11/12 players. So your now adding 3 or 4 new coaching wages to your club pay roll which if you said were £20,000 per year you adding £60,000 minimum to your wage bill. As a CAT1 club you also need to have an indoor and all weather pitch avaliable for every day of the year. We dont have these facilities so more money would have to be spent building and maintaining them! If you add the anual fee and the player and coaching wages together you have an annual cost of around £2.7 million pound. The last player we produced who had a good fee was Ashley Young who sold for £8/9 million. That was 5 years ago till we have Sean Murray. Take 5 years of CAT1 costs of £2.7 million per year for 5 years till the next top player and weve spent circ £13 million pounds. Now if you produce 1 player every 5 Years like we have and sell him for £8/9 million, yur still losing money! We know the club is losing around a million pond a month so 12 million a year give or take, it would be daft to add nearly another 3 million pounds for acadamy costs and even dafter to expect the Pozzo's to cover that as we have little track record of the acadamy actually working!

Good point, well made.

Thanks Bud

Not going to argue with most of your points as I am not as informed. I don't disagree with you sentiments either. However, it is wrong to just quote Ashley Young (the figures you quote are wrong also) What about the recent sales of Marvin and Aidy?

Marvin Sordell was brought in from Fulham and didn't come through the academy. Also it is worth noting that Ashley Young and also Mariappa although came through the Watford youth system but was before the actual Harefield Academy started which must force the question just how effective is it? Sean Murray is the only jewel of any note to come through the Harefield Academy

Just a thought, but is there any reason why the Watford Academy could not become a Udinese Academy based in the UK? Would this get round the rules and regulations and allow the Academy to do as they please?

OliverF1976 wrote:

Bright 1 wrote:

@ChrisBottom16 wrote:

Dr Johnny Fever wrote:

@ChrisBottom16 wrote:
This whole CAT 1 and CAT 3 grading is getting very boring!!!!! To be a CAT 1 club you have to pay an annual fee of £2.3 million just to enter which for Premier League clubs is a drob in the ocean due to TV revenue. e dont have any where near that spare cash floating around and we dont make that to invest. You have to offer pro contracts to a minimum of 20 youth players per season, which if you are Man U or Chelsea and have a hundred youth players is possible! If you have limited numbers like us its not possible. Even if we could offer pro contracts to 20 players they would all be on at least £500 a week minimum. That is a yearly figure of circa £480,000 per season for the 20 players! As a CAT 1 club you have to have a coach for every 7/8 players, where as a Cat 3 club its one coach per 11/12 players. So your now adding 3 or 4 new coaching wages to your club pay roll which if you said were £20,000 per year you adding £60,000 minimum to your wage bill. As a CAT1 club you also need to have an indoor and all weather pitch avaliable for every day of the year. We dont have these facilities so more money would have to be spent building and maintaining them! If you add the anual fee and the player and coaching wages together you have an annual cost of around £2.7 million pound. The last player we produced who had a good fee was Ashley Young who sold for £8/9 million. That was 5 years ago till we have Sean Murray. Take 5 years of CAT1 costs of £2.7 million per year for 5 years till the next top player and weve spent circ £13 million pounds. Now if you produce 1 player every 5 Years like we have and sell him for £8/9 million, yur still losing money! We know the club is losing around a million pond a month so 12 million a year give or take, it would be daft to add nearly another 3 million pounds for acadamy costs and even dafter to expect the Pozzo's to cover that as we have little track record of the acadamy actually working!

Good point, well made.

Thanks Bud

Not going to argue with most of your points as I am not as informed. I don't disagree with you sentiments either. However, it is wrong to just quote Ashley Young (the figures you quote are wrong also) What about the recent sales of Marvin and Aidy?

Marvin Sordell was brought in from Fulham and didn't come through the academy. Also it is worth noting that Ashley Young and also Mariappa although came through the Watford youth system but was before the actual Harefield Academy started which must force the question just how effective is it? Sean Murray is the only jewel of any note to come through the Harefield Academy

Exactly!

@ChrisBottom16 wrote:

Dr Johnny Fever wrote:

@ChrisBottom16 wrote: This whole CAT 1 and CAT 3 grading is getting very boring!!!!! To be a CAT 1 club you have to pay an annual fee of £2.3 million just to enter which for Premier League clubs is a drob in the ocean due to TV revenue. e dont have any where near that spare cash floating around and we dont make that to invest. You have to offer pro contracts to a minimum of 20 youth players per season, which if you are Man U or Chelsea and have a hundred youth players is possible! If you have limited numbers like us its not possible. Even if we could offer pro contracts to 20 players they would all be on at least £500 a week minimum. That is a yearly figure of circa £480,000 per season for the 20 players! As a CAT 1 club you have to have a coach for every 7/8 players, where as a Cat 3 club its one coach per 11/12 players. So your now adding 3 or 4 new coaching wages to your club pay roll which if you said were £20,000 per year you adding £60,000 minimum to your wage bill. As a CAT1 club you also need to have an indoor and all weather pitch avaliable for every day of the year. We dont have these facilities so more money would have to be spent building and maintaining them! If you add the anual fee and the player and coaching wages together you have an annual cost of around £2.7 million pound. The last player we produced who had a good fee was Ashley Young who sold for £8/9 million. That was 5 years ago till we have Sean Murray. Take 5 years of CAT1 costs of £2.7 million per year for 5 years till the next top player and weve spent circ £13 million pounds. Now if you produce 1 player every 5 Years like we have and sell him for £8/9 million, yur still losing money! We know the club is losing around a million pond a month so 12 million a year give or take, it would be daft to add nearly another 3 million pounds for acadamy costs and even dafter to expect the Pozzo's to cover that as we have little track record of the acadamy actually working!

Good point, well made.

Thanks Bud

ummm...I like Carling better :)

Regarding Murray, he is very much a newly found rough diamond and there is no guarantee that he will emulate last seasons form. So far this season, he has not. Worse still, he has come back from summer as a fat b**tard....unforgiva
ble as a professional and a VERY young one at that. Who is guiding and advising him when he is not at work?

Bringe wrote:
Personally I am hoping the Pozzo's will see good reason to expand the 1st team
Italian coaching influence downwards, and even expand it once we are established in the Premier League. However I'm not going to imagine it will be without some casualties before then. Watfords reputation is good and I'm sure that any of current crop that don't get kept on still have an excellent chance of being picked up by other clubs, they know what's going on here and the lads are not to blame.

I am sure us taking the Italian model on will be a stunning success, Serie A is just crammed full of quality Italian youngsters.

Sounds like sour grapes from Massey to me as he wasn't good enough!

buckler wrote:
Sounds like sour grapes from Massey to me as he wasn't good enough!

In a nutshell, too many middle of the road journey men coming from that mythical conveyor belt.

ChrisBottom16 your contribution earlier today is excellent
Watford always had a player or two coming through the old youth/junior set up, so in my view nothing very much has really changed making the academy an expensive luxury.

cliff46 wrote:
ChrisBottom16 your contribution earlier today is excellent
Watford always had a player or two coming through the old youth/junior set up, so in my view nothing very much has really changed making the academy an expensive luxury.

Thanks for the compliment Cliff! Agree, Young and Mapps came through the junior set up and Marv was nicked from Fulham. Gavin Massey was the first big name to come from the acadamy and hes just dropped down a league on a free transfer! Yes Sean Murray will be a massive star but we need to produce 2 or 3 every year to make it viable!

PurpleRalph wrote:

Mickey Quinn, not so thin wrote:

bishopofwatford wrote:

Mickey Quinn, not so thin wrote:

bishopofwatford wrote:
Hiho

Well well well ...a little bird told me that
Two things surprised our new patrons
When they got full control of the cathedral:

a). The books were in a far,far worse state than even slick accountants
Could heve envisaged

b). They were highly impressed with the Academy...a jewel well hidden.

Personally nothing surprises me these
Days when it comes to money and it's care.

More importantly is the Academy....surely the bedrock of a club of our size despite being twin with two cathedrals one in Spain nd the other in Italy.

Why then this on the surface strange decision to give up grade 1 academy status. And opt for nor the second tier but the third !?!?

I suspect this means either the academy is to be closed or more likely in my opinion. We will in future years
Be the source of all the choristers 3 cathedrals need.

Also what better than playing man u man c Chelsea etc youth teams ,singing with those of Spain and Italy's top flight???

Well I must go. Mr dithers ,our church warden is framing the now infamous set of safe keys....to hang above the
East gate to remind us the constant danger "of Ring fencing" and otherdubious financial jiggers pokery!

**** you are irritating. If you've got something to say, say it, and drop this pathetic churchy twaddle. Has never been close to amusing and is now just plain embarrassing and irritating.

oh dear who got out of the wrong side
Of someone's bed this morning. .?

I will do u a deal mickey Finn ...I never read your diatribe do me the ggracious honour as well

I try to avoid yours, like many i imagine, but sometimes I miss your name, like today. Do you think what you type is amusing (to anyone other than yourself) ?

Totally agree Mickey - I just scroll straight past his twaddle.

He should be renamed Bishop Basher of Watford.

Dear Bishop of Watford,
I am from the far away parish of Hove and am extremely surprised by the vitriol your learned posts attract.
It is a sad reflection of the lack of faith amongst our congregation - may you continue to preach as you wish.
Those with a sense of humour bypass should perhaps look a few miles north for a more suitable home.
On the Academy question, I agree with most of the posts here - we are now part of a very unique football ownership model and we need to accept the decisions taken. Perhaps in the not too distant future we will start to realise the opportunities this unique business model affords.
For now, great to see decent passing football and some exciting young(ish) names at the Vic.