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Post by Deleted on Dec 24, 2008 20:15:54 GMT
I wonder what the current thinking is inside Torquay United about entering a reserve team in a league? I can't recall any indication, one way or the other, nor any suggestion of the likely running costs. If this were to happen I guess it would be the midweek league now known as the totesport.com Combination. We've been members of this league before in its earlier incarnations. Here's a reminder of its current constitution, the league table coming from the Sunday Janner:  This would be the likely league because Saturday reserve football in one of the pyramid leagues is out of vogue (Brett, in his researches, showed Histon is one of very few exceptions to the rule). I think that's fair enough. The pyramid is for a certain purpose and what's the point of playing on a Saturday when up to eighteen players may be with the first team? And why play reserve games when the manager and coaches aren't available to watch them? Take a look at that league table and you'll see Forest Green and Salisbury from the BSP - as were Exeter when they were members. Bristol City are top because they usually play a strong team (Trundle, Murray and Akinde at Exeter last week). Swansea are bottom because they tend to play a very young team but, if the game I saw recently is typical, these are watched by Roberto Martinez and his entire coaching team. Exeter's approach is worth noting. Usually the subs from the previous first team game + the rest of the first team squad not named for that game + any first-team starter needing a "run" + some youth team players + the odd triallist. By that measure we would have fielded this type of line-up for a reserve game this week (struggling with some positions but you get my drift): Rice (no need for him to be at Truro); Robertson, Ellis, Brough, Gwinnett; Stevens, Adams, Thompson, Carayol; Benyon, Charran. Subs: Yeoman, Westcott, maybe Dsane (after missing games), maybe Green, etc. If we joined, and no team left, it would be an eleven-team league so twenty league fixtures and a cup. Sounds enough of a schedule for me. Exeter charge £3 and get crowds of 100-150. Anyone for Plainmoor - or even Coach Road? - on a midweek afternoon or evening? |
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Post by capitalgull on Dec 24, 2008 20:40:43 GMT
I thought there was some talk at the start of the season about entering the totesport.com Combination but it was decided that entering the Youth Alliance should be the first preference.
Since the Youth Team would have to be a part of the Combination team as well, those in overall charge preferred them to get some kind of competition against players closer to their own age (even now they are on average a year younger than Alliance rivals) before stepping up to perhaps face 'all-aged' teams from next season, if they decide to continue with that plan. Next year they will have had a season to grow up as players and we should have a new younger intake to fill up the youth squad, with perhaps the likes of Yeoman, Charran and Westcott to name but a couple being handed low-priced full professional deals.
But given Barton's recent posting, it's hard to argue that we wouldn't have been able to field a pretty strong line-up in the Combination even this season, adding in the chance to use some 'ringers' in the form of trialists (if eligible??) and local league players as we used to in the Great Mills league.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 24, 2008 21:13:08 GMT
Thanks Capital. Joining the Youth Alliance this season was the key move. As it's pretty much an under-17 team this season I can see the sense of a step-by-step approach. Was going to paste the Sunday Janner's Youth Alliance table to show how the membership is broadly similar to the totesport.com league (sounds like something funded by Merse and the Fontwell Four) but the result of our game at Cheltenham was incorrect. Instead there's information about the whole Youth Alliance set up at www.football-league.co.uk/staticFiles/1a/2b/0,,10794~142106,00.pdf Saturday morning youth games appeal to a certain type of groundhopper (usually of the 150+ games per season variety) - as well as people who like to watch up-and-coming players. I've been taken to one or two including a cracker between Lincoln and Darlington (when it was under 19s) en route to one of our games at Boston. Part of the fun is rushing around towns finding the right pitch. Venues tend to get switched at the last minute. As for the totesport Combination, triallists are allowed but do they always play under their real names? I saw the Exeter v Bristol City game - my excuse is I live 15 minutes walk from the ground - and Bristol City had a handy looking striker called Peter Shriver who scored a hat-trick. Looked him up on the web when I got home and found absolutely no reference to him. Have just done another search and there's some suggestion he could be MSK Zilina (of Slovakia) striker Peter Styvar who recently scored against Aston Villa in the UEFA Cup. |
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Post by capitalgull on Dec 24, 2008 21:32:43 GMT
I can see the point of us joining the Combination next season, but I do wonder if the teams entered in it play similar strength sides (I haven't looked). By that, would the likes of Brough, etc, have been playing fringe players from Exeter, etc, or basically their youth team plus a couple of others? And is the football played all that competitive - as Merse often says, players we have picked up from supposed decent reserve competition in the Premier League have not proved to be strong enough for us; players like Stuart Noble come to mind.
When you look at the team we'd have been fielding this season, if that was the sort of idea of filling the team from the previous first team bench, plus fringe then youths to fill it out, we'd have a side almost able to compete in the bottom half of the Conference if not a little higher.
I just wonder if we'd be better off in the Devon League or the Western League playing the likes of Dawlish and the teams we used to play in the good old days when I could bunk off sports lessons and go to Plainmoor and watch the likes of Chris Curran and Darren Moore when they were coming through the ranks. Would the education for the younger players be any better? Would the more experienced members of the reserve side feel sleighted by playing against a 'bunch of cloggers' as we often used to put it watching Great Mills games?
Speaking to some of them, as I did back then, they said they learned a lot more playing Bristol Manor Farm than when they ended up playing Bristol City Reserves in a friendly. I just wonder if things have changed much at these levels.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 24, 2008 22:04:49 GMT
The problem with any reserve league is you never know who you are going to be playing. It could be somebody's first team - if they've had a postponement or a thrashing - or it could be a very young team. Exeter use their team as an extension of the first team but that's not always the case with other clubs. The line-up is the prerogative of the club. It does make for uneveness and Merse is right about the likes of Stuart Noble. I must confess I never get too excited when we sign players from big clubs.
The issue is the lack of suitable alternatives. The Western League, as far as I understand, is dead set against reserve teams. It's now off-limits for us geographically at its lower-tier. This means we could only reach its upper-tier via the SW Peninsula League Premier.
The South West Peninsula League has a Premier Division, Division One (W) and Divsion One (E). The last of these is at the 7th tier of the non-league pyramid and basically replaced the old Devon League in 2007.
The Peninsula League will accept reserve teams - or even new teams - into its first divsions provided there are no suitable first team applicants from feeder leagues (such as the South Devon). This season they accepted Truro City Reserves (winners of the Cornwall Combination) and the Royal Marines (an entirely new club). Now, in theory, if Truro get promoted to the Premier - and win that - they can then step up to the Western Premier (as long as their first team is keeping sufficiently ahead on the pyramid).
So for Torquay, that means hoping there are insufficient applicants for Division One (East) and throwing in our lot in a league alongside Galmpton, Liverton, Teignmouth, Buckfastleigh, etc. Next time I bump into the league secretary I'll ask him....
Exeter Civil Service v Royal Marines always sounds a fascinating fixture. At what? Yomping across Dartmoor or counter-signing European Social Fund applications?
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Post by capitalgull on Dec 24, 2008 22:13:08 GMT
Thanks for that BD - I wasn't really sure who was up for accepting who in terms of a reserve team joining the lower levels of the Pyramid, but I think this season's evidence (as well as last season really) means we need some kind of structured reserve team.
Although we consider the likes of Brough, Adams, etc ready to come into the first XI if needed, there is no evidence that players outside the likes of Carayol and Stevens who have been in and out of the team, could seemlessly join and us as fans would see no difference.
Certainly Brough, when he came on at Eastbourne, looked woefully short of match practice and only really came into the game in the final five minutes when he finally seemed to have adjusted to the pace. And that is no sleight on him, since he has had so few minutes of playing time this season at any level.
We've managed the sum total of one official reserve team friendly against Team Bath's second string, none of the reserves played much in the Setanta Shield (although more in the game we got knocked out in, somewhat typically) and we haven't even had a Devon Bowl game yet. Professional footballers, in my opinion, cannot be expected to perform at their highest levels on matchday based on training only and no competitive football.
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Post by graygull on Dec 25, 2008 17:10:02 GMT
Seems like it would have been a good plan to have joined the Combo league to me and had a structered league for the fringe players to get match ready.
If costs were an issue how do the likes of the money starved teams like Bournmouth, Forrest Green and such cope ?
Looks like we missed the boat on this issue.
I well remember those Western league league days as a lad watching second team footy at Plainmoor.
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chelstongull
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Post by chelstongull on Jan 21, 2009 12:48:14 GMT
I wonder indeed if we will have a reserve team for the next season?
I read that Mr Tisdale (You either love him or hate him, but would grudgley admire what he has achieved with City. This coupled with the Tiz Out shouts that were heard around last Christmas) recently planned last nights win over the Dags in a reserve team by starting with Logan and McAllister.
He also seems to have picked up a good right back from Man Utd to boot.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 21, 2009 16:41:53 GMT
l think it's correct to say Paul Tisdale makes wise use of City's fixtures in the midweek league. The mentality for a club of Exeter's - or Torquay's - size should be to treat it as a first team squad exercise (plus some young players and triallists) rather than necessariliy as a reserve league.
I'm sure we can think of how Torquay could be using such games at the moment but I agree step one was to get a youth team in place and, as somebody has explained, they're only really the younger half of a normal youth team squad. I'm not sure why the club hasn't arranged any recent midweek "reserve friendlies" - maybe there's not the desire/need; getting opponents may be difficult; fixture list looks crowded from now on, etc.
From the Combination games I've seen recently, I'd say they are more like friendlies than fully-competitive games. Nor do you know who you'll be facing. We could pitch in a 17-year-old centre back and he could face Lee Trundle playing for Bristol City or a lad younger than himself for Swansea City. That's the nature of the beast but I still think that it would be a good move.
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Rob
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Post by Rob on Jan 21, 2009 21:49:58 GMT
I've not seen it mentioned, but I did notice in this weeks NLP that we are receiving funding for our Youth set-up which others - their article featuring Cambridge Utd - have not been able to get. Part of that lies with competing in the Youth Alliance. It even stated that Cambridge were planning a march starting in Torquay protesting at the erratic nature of the funding.
As for having a reserve team featuring in the Combination, I'd be all for it were it affordable and I feel our Board would have similar thoughts. So therein lies the crux of the issue for me. Maybe I'm wrong, but I can't see too many other arguments against it to be honest.
I would certainly wish to see a more concerted effort to arrange friendlies more often than they currently crop up.
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