Post by Deleted on Nov 22, 2009 21:39:22 GMT
Reading the posts about last week’s FA Youth Cup game – together with those memories of the 1969/70 youth team – made me think about the history of youth players and youth teams at Plainmoor. There’s a lot I don’t know so I’m hoping others will plug some of the gaps.
Going back to the 1927-39 period, I get the impression very few young, home-produced players appeared for us in the Football League given our main supply line was experienced players from other league clubs. Mind you, it was a time when, throughout the game, most players didn’t make their professional debuts until they’d turned twenty.
At Torquay the notable exceptions were Ralph Birkett and Sid Cann who made their debuts aged seventeen and sixteen after signing from Dartmouth and Babbacombe respectively. I’m guessing neither would have been allowed to sign professional until their 17th birthdays and – in an age when the school-leaving age was fourteen (year nine by today’s measure) – you wonder how they spent the two to three years between schools football and turning pro. Were they genuine "undiscovered amateurs" playing in local football - or was there an informal association with Torquay United based on a “promise”? I’m not even sure how much youth football was played – Boys’ Brigades perhaps? – and at what stage players made the transition to the men’s game. Either way, in the case of Cann especially – who'd played for England Schools – there must have been plenty of expectation and speculation.
Other than Cann and Birkett – who both went on to greater things – there seem to be few examples of local youngsters playing first-team football for Torquay United before the war. Len Knapman – a 17-year-old from Newton Abbot – made a single appearance in our first FL season and can almost be described as our first FL “youth product” (but was that by accident or design?). Afterwards George Stabb from Paignton (who later went to Notts County) joined from Dartmouth and made his debut aged eighteen around the same time as Lew Tapp from Newton Abbot (who lacks a date of birth in the Centenary History). Of other pre-war "names" Phil Joslin (from Kingsteignton) was in the team at nineteen after playing for Argyle as an amateur. Overall, in the absence of youngsters in the first team – and remembering United fielded a reserve team in the tough Southern League – it would be intriguing to learn more about squads of those days and whether there were locals or young players in the second-team playing against best non-league clubs in the country.
As WW2 finished the school leaving age was in the process of being raised to fifteen (current year 10) following the 1944 Education Act. However I’m pretty certain players still couldn’t turn professional until seventeen and, according to the Encyclopaedia of British Football, there was no sign of an apprenticeship system until 1960. This was the age of the young player leaving home and school at fifteen to play as an amateur for a league club prior to being signed at seventeen. Read the biographies of 1950s and 1960s stars and you’ll see that some of them were assigned jobs and trades (or put on the "ground staff") to fill the time before turning pro.
But did this happen at Plainmoor during the 1940s and 1950s? I’ve not seen any evidence and, should you trace the career history of our younger players in those days, they usually play amateur football right up until signing pro. A case in point is Tommy Northcott who, from what we see in Timbo’s programmes, was being trailled by the likes of Bolton, Blackpool, Bury and Derby right up to him signing forms on his 17th birthday. The books show he was playing football for Hele Spurs until then and – as the new Education Act hadn’t taken effect by the time Tommy came to leaving school – there were probably nearly three football years for him to fill between school and professional football. Was this spent entirely in local football (“farmed out” maybe?), was he allowed to play for the reserves or did he remain a free spirit "open to offers"?
History paints a similar picture for Graham Bond (pro at eighteen via Hele Spurs), Mike Tiddy (seventeen from Helston), Peter Wakeham (seventeen from Kingsbridge) and Alan Smith (seventeen from Port Sunlight). There’s also the 17-year-old George Northcott coming through the “juniors” in 1952 and, much later, John Rossiter becoming a professional at eighteen.
Beyond those names not much came through at all which, for all I know, may have been typical of a club of our size. Thereafter – in the 1960s and 1970s – the records start to show players emerging as “apprentices “: Cliff Balsom, Billy Griffiths, John Evans, Ben Murphy, Ken Sandercock (via Plymstock), Phil Sandercock, Dave Pook, Bradley Beattie. These were “young professionals” who could sign a contract upon leaving school before turning fully-professional at a later stage. And, if these are the ones who eventually played for the first team, how many didn’t? Merse has told us about a few - who were the others? How young were those reserve and "A" teams we've discussed on this site?
Then, after the early 1970s, the apprenticeship seems to disappear from Plainmoor. Maybe this was down to finances, possibly down to a cohort being lost when the school leaving age was raised to sixteen (as now) around that time. Stuart Clarke is described as a “junior” (although I remember him as an apprentice) and there’s that group of local players who developed after continuing in education: Steve Morrall, Ian Twitchin, Richard Goslin, Maurice Cox and Mark Smith. There’s also one or two “odds and sods” such as Neale Marmon, Damian Keeley and John Berry, an eighteen-year-old who pitched up for a solitary league game in 1983/84 (who was he?).
All of which brings us to the revamping of the apprenticeship scheme under the banner of the Youth Training Scheme in 1983. This came with government funding and soon clubs such as Torquay United were recruiting half-a-dozen trainees each year. Within a few years the likes of Ian Bastow, Mark Loram (with a little help from Brixham Villa), Darren Cann and Chris Myers had played for the first team. Over the best part of twenty years the youth scheme under its various guises – “YTS” in its original format had gone by the early 1990s – managed to produce nearly fifty players who made first-team appearances. Someone may like to accept the challenge of naming them.
Then, as we know, the programme was abandoned at Plainmoor before its’ gradual reinstatement in 2007 so far adding the names of Jordan Charran and Ashley Yeoman to the list of those who’ve appeared in the first team.
As for the history of the Torquay United youth team, I’m not so sure. Certainly other professional clubs had played in the FA Youth Cup from the early 1950s and soon there were all sorts of youth leagues including the South Eastern Counties League, Lancashire League and Northern Intermediate League (whilst Argyle and Bristol City fielded "colts" under-18 sides in the Western League).
To read Merse and Stefano’s revealing posts on another thread we know Torquay United played in the FA Youth Cup from at least the late 1960s without, by all accounts, playing youth league games at that time. But, from the early 1970s, I remember a Torquay United Colts team playing in – I think – local Sunday youth football. This was an amateur team that was supplemented by other players for the yearly FA Youth Cup ties. Later – according to the TUFC History site – our youth team played in the Wessex Youth League, the South West and South Wales Youth League, the South West Counties League and the Youth Alliance. I guess much of the league activity dates from YTS and the introduction of a youth policy in the 1980s. After all, if you now had the players, you needed a team (and, if truth were told, some players were recruited simply so that we could have a team). Over the years most of those regional leagues have been for under-18 sides although – for a short time a few seasons back – it went to under-17 and under-19. We’re now back as members of the Youth Alliance playing under-18s football. And, putting the history together, Norwich may well have been one of our best-ever FA Youth Cup wins.
Going back to the 1927-39 period, I get the impression very few young, home-produced players appeared for us in the Football League given our main supply line was experienced players from other league clubs. Mind you, it was a time when, throughout the game, most players didn’t make their professional debuts until they’d turned twenty.
At Torquay the notable exceptions were Ralph Birkett and Sid Cann who made their debuts aged seventeen and sixteen after signing from Dartmouth and Babbacombe respectively. I’m guessing neither would have been allowed to sign professional until their 17th birthdays and – in an age when the school-leaving age was fourteen (year nine by today’s measure) – you wonder how they spent the two to three years between schools football and turning pro. Were they genuine "undiscovered amateurs" playing in local football - or was there an informal association with Torquay United based on a “promise”? I’m not even sure how much youth football was played – Boys’ Brigades perhaps? – and at what stage players made the transition to the men’s game. Either way, in the case of Cann especially – who'd played for England Schools – there must have been plenty of expectation and speculation.
Other than Cann and Birkett – who both went on to greater things – there seem to be few examples of local youngsters playing first-team football for Torquay United before the war. Len Knapman – a 17-year-old from Newton Abbot – made a single appearance in our first FL season and can almost be described as our first FL “youth product” (but was that by accident or design?). Afterwards George Stabb from Paignton (who later went to Notts County) joined from Dartmouth and made his debut aged eighteen around the same time as Lew Tapp from Newton Abbot (who lacks a date of birth in the Centenary History). Of other pre-war "names" Phil Joslin (from Kingsteignton) was in the team at nineteen after playing for Argyle as an amateur. Overall, in the absence of youngsters in the first team – and remembering United fielded a reserve team in the tough Southern League – it would be intriguing to learn more about squads of those days and whether there were locals or young players in the second-team playing against best non-league clubs in the country.
As WW2 finished the school leaving age was in the process of being raised to fifteen (current year 10) following the 1944 Education Act. However I’m pretty certain players still couldn’t turn professional until seventeen and, according to the Encyclopaedia of British Football, there was no sign of an apprenticeship system until 1960. This was the age of the young player leaving home and school at fifteen to play as an amateur for a league club prior to being signed at seventeen. Read the biographies of 1950s and 1960s stars and you’ll see that some of them were assigned jobs and trades (or put on the "ground staff") to fill the time before turning pro.
But did this happen at Plainmoor during the 1940s and 1950s? I’ve not seen any evidence and, should you trace the career history of our younger players in those days, they usually play amateur football right up until signing pro. A case in point is Tommy Northcott who, from what we see in Timbo’s programmes, was being trailled by the likes of Bolton, Blackpool, Bury and Derby right up to him signing forms on his 17th birthday. The books show he was playing football for Hele Spurs until then and – as the new Education Act hadn’t taken effect by the time Tommy came to leaving school – there were probably nearly three football years for him to fill between school and professional football. Was this spent entirely in local football (“farmed out” maybe?), was he allowed to play for the reserves or did he remain a free spirit "open to offers"?
History paints a similar picture for Graham Bond (pro at eighteen via Hele Spurs), Mike Tiddy (seventeen from Helston), Peter Wakeham (seventeen from Kingsbridge) and Alan Smith (seventeen from Port Sunlight). There’s also the 17-year-old George Northcott coming through the “juniors” in 1952 and, much later, John Rossiter becoming a professional at eighteen.
Beyond those names not much came through at all which, for all I know, may have been typical of a club of our size. Thereafter – in the 1960s and 1970s – the records start to show players emerging as “apprentices “: Cliff Balsom, Billy Griffiths, John Evans, Ben Murphy, Ken Sandercock (via Plymstock), Phil Sandercock, Dave Pook, Bradley Beattie. These were “young professionals” who could sign a contract upon leaving school before turning fully-professional at a later stage. And, if these are the ones who eventually played for the first team, how many didn’t? Merse has told us about a few - who were the others? How young were those reserve and "A" teams we've discussed on this site?
Then, after the early 1970s, the apprenticeship seems to disappear from Plainmoor. Maybe this was down to finances, possibly down to a cohort being lost when the school leaving age was raised to sixteen (as now) around that time. Stuart Clarke is described as a “junior” (although I remember him as an apprentice) and there’s that group of local players who developed after continuing in education: Steve Morrall, Ian Twitchin, Richard Goslin, Maurice Cox and Mark Smith. There’s also one or two “odds and sods” such as Neale Marmon, Damian Keeley and John Berry, an eighteen-year-old who pitched up for a solitary league game in 1983/84 (who was he?).
All of which brings us to the revamping of the apprenticeship scheme under the banner of the Youth Training Scheme in 1983. This came with government funding and soon clubs such as Torquay United were recruiting half-a-dozen trainees each year. Within a few years the likes of Ian Bastow, Mark Loram (with a little help from Brixham Villa), Darren Cann and Chris Myers had played for the first team. Over the best part of twenty years the youth scheme under its various guises – “YTS” in its original format had gone by the early 1990s – managed to produce nearly fifty players who made first-team appearances. Someone may like to accept the challenge of naming them.
Then, as we know, the programme was abandoned at Plainmoor before its’ gradual reinstatement in 2007 so far adding the names of Jordan Charran and Ashley Yeoman to the list of those who’ve appeared in the first team.
As for the history of the Torquay United youth team, I’m not so sure. Certainly other professional clubs had played in the FA Youth Cup from the early 1950s and soon there were all sorts of youth leagues including the South Eastern Counties League, Lancashire League and Northern Intermediate League (whilst Argyle and Bristol City fielded "colts" under-18 sides in the Western League).
To read Merse and Stefano’s revealing posts on another thread we know Torquay United played in the FA Youth Cup from at least the late 1960s without, by all accounts, playing youth league games at that time. But, from the early 1970s, I remember a Torquay United Colts team playing in – I think – local Sunday youth football. This was an amateur team that was supplemented by other players for the yearly FA Youth Cup ties. Later – according to the TUFC History site – our youth team played in the Wessex Youth League, the South West and South Wales Youth League, the South West Counties League and the Youth Alliance. I guess much of the league activity dates from YTS and the introduction of a youth policy in the 1980s. After all, if you now had the players, you needed a team (and, if truth were told, some players were recruited simply so that we could have a team). Over the years most of those regional leagues have been for under-18 sides although – for a short time a few seasons back – it went to under-17 and under-19. We’re now back as members of the Youth Alliance playing under-18s football. And, putting the history together, Norwich may well have been one of our best-ever FA Youth Cup wins.
