Soccerphile Editorial - June 2013
Problems For England's Youth
Two stories this month must surely serve as a cautionary note to the authorities about the development of young footballers in England and thereby the future of the national team.
On the one hand are the sorry performances of England's junior sides, including the disappointment of the under-21s under the guidance of former manager Stuart Pearce, who lost all three group games in the European Championships in Israel.
On the other is the tale of John Bostock, the former teenage prodigy released by Spurs this month after failing to start a game in a potentially career-ending five-year stay at White Hart Lane.
Bostock came through England's junior ranks with the likes of Arsenal's Jack Wilshire, Jonjo Shelvey from Liverpool and Jack Rodwell, who moved from Everton to Manchester City in a £15 million deal last summer.
But while all three have to one degree or another established themselves at the Premier League level and already earned a senior England cap (and in Wilshire's case been considered to be a future England captain), Bostock is searching around the lower leagues for a club willing to take a punt on him.
The 21-year-old made his debut for Crystal Palace aged just 15, a year after Palace chairman Simon Jordon claimed that the club turned down a near-million pound bid from Chelsea for the cultured midfielder.
But in 2008 he forced through a move from his boyhood idols to Tottenham, then managed by Spaniard Juande Ramos.
Ramos was replaced by Harry Redknapp soon after, but under neither Harry nor Andre Villas-Boas was Bostock able to force himself anywhere near first team contention and he spent countless months on loan at Brentford, Hull, Sheffield Wednesday, Swindon and, latterly, Toronto FC in the MLS.
Bostock has claimed that the move was never about the money on offer to him at Spurs, but he wouldn't be the first teenager to have their head turned by a Premier League club.
More tellingly perhaps is the revelation that the sheer enormity of the obstacles to the first XI led to a period during which he struggled to adapt and lost the momentum created from being one of the brightest lights in his age group as a junior.
The fact that Shelvey and Rodwell have also struggled to establish themselves as regular starters since similar high profile transfers to another two of the country's leading clubs adds further weight to the theory that England's chances of success at the junior level – and thereby their long-term aspirations – are being compromised in several ways.
Either the best youngsters, such as Wilshire and team-mate Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain at the Gunners, are skipping the under-21 age group to join up with the seniors in their teens or they arrive for under-21 duty with little match time under their belts and loftier aspirations than representing what is fast becoming seen as an age level for those not good enough for the full England team.
According to some, the FA have become guilty of demoting the importance of an under-21 cap by preferring to see young players play for the senior side in a friendly than tournament football for a chance to win some silverware.
And this clear preference, as well as the Premier League money on offer to the land's best youngsters, might just be playing a considerable role in hampering the national team's development.
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