There's Only One 'Effin Fulham ~ I Hope!

Last week Anthony brought home a letter and two pages of forms to fill in from Fulham Football Club inviting him to a trial to be held in North London as part of their "talent referal scheme"

Not being able to get anything more from Anthony than "my teacher gave it to me" and not being able to discover either who else might have got one or who exactly gave it to him, I phoned Fulham FC and was later called back by a very polite and helpful guy who was their "Talent Co-Ordinator" who explained to me that he would have received it as a promising footballer identified by either Islington Schools FA or his own school team manager. He told me that FFC having been aware that many kids in Inner London are "no longer getting opportunities" at local community clubs due to the cost of belonging to such clubs and that therefore Fulham FC were contacting ALL schools in London inviting them to send their best players along to such trials. I in turn told them of his current inclusion at Arsenal FCs Development Scheme and that he played for A Class Fotball Foundation and they told me they were aware of A Class and regularly screened their matches.

I then spoke to his coaches at Arsenal about this and took their advice to send him along as a "nothing ventured nothing gained" sort of exercise and with the advice to sign nothing and so Anthony was duly taken last Saturday morning to take part in something I would struggle not to describe as akin to when Jesue Christ professed to feed the five thousand.

There were at least 250 kids there from a school years1 to 6, and whereas Anthony's school had dutifully sent their "best" (3) players it seemed some schools had sent their entire ruddy teams.

A brave attempt at creating order out of chaos met with some pretty dreadful attitudes towards the football club staff from some pretty arrogant parents and when "the football" eventually got under way with the players broken up into their school age groups, the standard was appallingly like a school playground game with hordes of no hopers all ball chasing and something resembling one of those old Victorian prints of street football "Uppies v Downies" A lot of the kids would struggled to have trapped a bag of cement let alone a football, possessed nothing like a first touch and as for awareness?

A generally pissed off Anthony came away asking if it was not too late to get to his A Class training session, clutching a very nicely produced certificate in red black and white (Fulham seem to add a lot of red to their club colours of black and white) from Fulham FC proclaiming him to being of a highly promising standard and a letter informng him that I would be getting contacted by FFC with a view to getting him along to one of their Centres of Excellence.

Tucked away at the bottom was a line or two informing me that "places at such centres are extrememly limited" and that to secure his place plus a chance to visit Inter Milan, the San Siro Stadium and a "Premiership football ground" would cost me two hundred and fifty pounds payable in two installments before the end of the current football season!

This was my first experience of the "Rip Off Culture" that seems to be prevaiilent in our national game now, where even a Premiership football club seems to be intent on making money out of youngsters who have quite frankly no chance of getting anywhere near a professional football contract, nowhere near getting in one of the many teams I see on a weekly basis in the Camden & Islington Midweek Youth League; and from what I learn now; are already paying (through their parents) sums in the greater hundreds of pounds per season in the well heeled outer suburbs to join self styled "academies" in places like Hampstead, Highgate and Barnet.

"Academies" that their parents buy them into whereas in Inner London foundations like my son's, we as parents chuck in what we can afford (around twenty quid a month) towards refs' fees and pitch hire, kits and even correct footwear for some of the poorer kids....................and remember, to get into Anthony's club A Class there is a strict policy of talent over everything and an even stricter one of invitation only with those who don't quite make it getting funnelled onto other clubs in the neighbourhood and kept an eye on for future reference.