Graham Barrett's manifesto for youth development in Irish football

[Fitzy]

Graham Barrett has published what can only be described as a manifesto for the development of youth football in Ireland today in the Irish Times.

Graham Barrett: ‘The time for action in Irish football is now’

It’s very long and rambles at times, repeating itself, but essentially it contains a number of good, some radical, ideas. I hadn’t realised that developmental pathways in Ireland had fallen so far behind. Here in Australia with a massive growth in youth players in the last decade or so, a national curriculum and pathways have been put in place, with increasing involvement from the professional clubs (every A League club will have to have an Academy up and running by the end of next season, Sydney FC and Western Sydney Wanderers starting this season in the Tier 2 leagues, the National Premier Leagues, we’ve been doing this for about 6 yeasr at The Mariners). The coaching standards have dramatically improved (you need a FIFA B licence to get near coaching an underage development team now), even though funding continues to be a problem (most of it comes from the parents).

Are any of you involved in the more elite youth levels in Ireland and what do you think of Barretts proposals? I’d appreciate it if any of you could give us a description of what the youth development pathway is like in Ireland now.

[Little_Lord_Fauntleroy]

Stoped reading when it said ex arsenal

[Rocko]

I read that earlier. I sort of skimmed it because I was on my phone and it’s very long but I didn’t really see anything of merit in it.

It spends about 30 paragraphs just being vague.

It then spends some time on the amount of training that top young players do - but I think it gets that wrong because it only includes the time spent at elite camps and not the rest of the training they’d do.

But that’s about all there is that’s in any way specific, while criticising elements of the Ruud Dokter plan for not being specific enough e.g.

For example, the proposed plan for 80 approved FAI Academies for 6-12 year olds by 2020 sounds like an interesting idea, but how specifically would this sort of academy operate?

Anyway, that’s all harmless enough but then he goes into formations and tactics and to be honest he comes across as a right eejit there.

Fire, passion and controlled aggression must be the bedrock of how we must approach football matches at every level.

There’s no place for that sort of crap in a national technical development plan.

And then there’s a piece about how a singsong after youth international matches is important too:

I will leave you with this. Win, lose or draw, after every game at underage level, Brian Kerr and Noel O’Reilly would gather us together downstairs at the hotel and Noel would get the guitar out and we would have a right good sing-song.

I remember seeing other teams and coaches staying at the same hotel, looking on not knowing quite what to make of it as we belted out the “Fields of Athenry” or some Christy Moore or Luke Kelly classic.

They were mystified and could not understand our culture, so no wonder they could rarely beat us.

He seems to think that what Ireland needs is to carve out backs-to-the-wall 1-0 wins at underage international level thaks to a never-say-die spirit and that will result in a better quality of senior player. I think that’s horseshit.

Anyway, he finally redeems himself by quoting the Wolfe Tones in the final paragraph, but I think it’s a long ramble, and it doesn’t really have any specific criticism or any specific suggestions and places far too much stock in underage results as opposes to numbers and quality of youngsters playing the game.

[Julio_Geordio]

@Rocko

I read that earlier. I sort of skimmed it because I was on my phone and it’s very long but I didn’t really see anything of merit in it.

It spends about 30 paragraphs just being vague.

It then spends some time on the amount of training that top young players do - but I think it gets that wrong because it only includes the time spent at elite camps and not the rest of the training they’d do.

But that’s about all there is that’s in any way specific, while criticising elements of the Ruud Dokter plan for not being specific enough e.g.

For example, the proposed plan for 80 approved FAI Academies for 6-12 year olds by 2020 sounds like an interesting idea, but how specifically would this sort of academy operate?

Anyway, that’s all harmless enough but then he goes into formations and tactics and to be honest he comes across as a right eejit there.

Fire, passion and controlled aggression must be the bedrock of how we must approach football matches at every level.

There’s no place for that sort of crap in a national technical development plan.

And then there’s a piece about how a singsong after youth international matches is important too:

I will leave you with this. Win, lose or draw, after every game at underage level, Brian Kerr and Noel O’Reilly would gather us together downstairs at the hotel and Noel would get the guitar out and we would have a right good sing-song.

I remember seeing other teams and coaches staying at the same hotel, looking on not knowing quite what to make of it as we belted out the “Fields of Athenry” or some Christy Moore or Luke Kelly classic.

They were mystified and could not understand our culture, so no wonder they could rarely beat us.

He seems to think that what Ireland needs is to carve out backs-to-the-wall 1-0 wins at underage international level thaks to a never-say-die spirit and that will result in a better quality of senior player. I think that’s horseshit.

Anyway, he finally redeems himself by quoting the Wolfe Tones in the final paragraph, but I think it’s a long ramble, and it doesn’t really have any specific criticism or any specific suggestions and places far too much stock in underage results as opposes to numbers and quality of youngsters playing the game.

I gave up halfway through. All anecdotal and waffle

[Bandage]

+1,000,000.

The article was all over the place.

One paragraph bemoaning lack of tactical awareness.

Next one saying the importance of tactical awareness was overplayed and we needed to focus on our spirit.

Anecdote.

Contradictory paragraph.

Repeat.

[Fagan_ODowd]

I’d imagine like any other pro that he would see an academy churning out players in his own image as a success.

[Smark]

I read it all. It took a long time. Yes he rambled in parts but i thought the general gist and point of it was excellent.

[Bandage]

How could you decipher his point when he was contradicting himself throughout?