Boot Dreams BBC

[The Kraken]

Very interesting programme just finished now on BBC1, a bunch of lads who got released by pro clubs and are being managed in a special new group being run by Gifton Noel Williams. One of the lads is Jake Flannigan who played for Saints. Episode 2 just played but they’re all available on iPlayer. Good watching.

 

Edited 29 August, 2023 by The Kraken

[Saint_clark]

Wow. Just looked him up, I recognised the name so thought he must have forged a semi decent career in the lower leagues. 

One appearance in he EFL Trophy and 18 appearances in non-league at 27 years old. 

[chiknsmack]

https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/66534464

[Alain Perrin]

What was the name of the bloke around the Lowe era who reckoned he could shape no name players into superstars; not the same bloke? Gifton, Grafton someone?

[Saint_clark]

11 minutes ago, Alain Perrin said:

What was the name of the bloke around the Lowe era who reckoned he could shape no name players into superstars; not the same bloke? Gifton, Grafton someone?

Simon Clifford? 

It's not this guy regardless, Gifton Noel Williams was playing for Burnley when we got relegated from the Prem in 2005. 

Edited 30 August, 2023 by Saint_clark

[CSA96]

1 hour ago, Saint_clark said:

Wow. Just looked him up, I recognised the name so thought he must have forged a semi decent career in the lower leagues. 

One appearance in he EFL Trophy and 18 appearances in non-league at 27 years old. 

Real shame, he was getting on/near the bench and had a pretty low squad number for an academy lad in the mid 2010s (shirt number in the 30s, I think)

Suffered the misfortune of three ACLs, I believe and had to have a load of different knee surgeries.

Edit: Just seen chiknsmack's post above confirms the three ACLs, brutal.

Edited 30 August, 2023 by CSA96

[Saint_clark]

2 minutes ago, CSA96 said:

Real shame, he was getting on/near the bench and had a pretty low squad number for an academy lad in the mid 2010s (shirt number in the 30s, I think)

Suffered the misfortune of three ACLs, I believe and had to have a load of different knee surgeries.

Edit: Just seen chiknsmack's post above confirms the three ACLs, brutal.

There's been a lot of them, Hesketh, Seager, Gape, McQueen, McCarthy (Jason not Alex), Jake Sinclair, Turnbull, Watts, Tchaptchet, Olaigbe. All of them tipped to be rising stars at one point or another and all falling by the wayside. 

I remember Ramello Mitchell being the next big thing, watched by clubs from all over...he can't even get a club at the moment. 

Who was the lad that went to Chelsea and immediately came back again? Is he still at the club?

[CSA96]

2 minutes ago, Saint_clark said:

There's been a lot of them, Hesketh, Seager, Gape, McQueen, McCarthy (Jason not Alex), Jake Sinclair, Turnbull, Watts, Tchaptchet, Olaigbe. All of them tipped to be rising stars at one point or another and all falling by the wayside. 

I remember Ramello Mitchell being the next big thing, watched by clubs from all over...he can't even get a club at the moment. 

Who was the lad that went to Chelsea and immediately came back again? Is he still at the club?

Tyler Dibling - and yes. Martin gave him some minutes in the first game or two of preseason before he went back to the U21 setup.

Wow, did not realise Mitchell couldn't even get a club now. Remember when we picked him up from Birmingham City ahead of a pack of other clubs.

Edited 30 August, 2023 by CSA96

[trousers]

1 minute ago, Saint_clark said:

Who was the lad that went to Chelsea and immediately came back again? Is he still at the club?

Tyler Dibbling? Played in the U21s game last week IIRC.

[Saint_clark]

1 minute ago, CSA96 said:

Tyler Dibling - and yes. Martin gave him some minutes in the first game or two of preseason before he went back to the U21 setup.

 

Just now, trousers said:

Tyler Dibbling? Played in the U21s game last week IIRC.

That's the one. He's obviously highly rated, would be good to get him on the bench at some point this season. 

[Fan The Flames]

Dibling came on in the Gillingham game.

[Streaky]

5 hours ago, Saint_clark said:

There's been a lot of them, Hesketh, Seager, Gape, McQueen, McCarthy (Jason not Alex), Jake Sinclair, Turnbull, Watts, Tchaptchet, Olaigbe. All of them tipped to be rising stars at one point or another and all falling by the wayside. 

I remember Ramello Mitchell being the next big thing, watched by clubs from all over...he can't even get a club at the moment. 

Who was the lad that went to Chelsea and immediately came back again? Is he still at the club?

Mccarthy is at Wycombe and is making a good career for himself.

[Sheaf Saint]

32 minutes ago, Streaky said:

Mccarthy is at Wycombe and is making a good career for himself.

As was Dominic Gape, and doing very well by all accounts but hampered by injuries for the last 3 seasons. Seems he was released this summer.

Most recent article I can find says he was training with Stockport County in July but is still without a club for the time being.

[The Cat]

6 hours ago, Saint_clark said:

There's been a lot of them, Hesketh, Seager, Gape, McQueen, McCarthy (Jason not Alex), Jake Sinclair, Turnbull, Watts, Tchaptchet, Olaigbe. All of them tipped to be rising stars at one point or another and all falling by the wayside. 

I remember Ramello Mitchell being the next big thing, watched by clubs from all over...he can't even get a club at the moment. 

Who was the lad that went to Chelsea and immediately came back again? Is he still at the club?

I'd imagine fans of most clubs in the top 2 leagues have had kids who were highly rated at some point, although some of the ones you list I would argue haven't been necessarily bigged up as rising stars more than any other academy player.

Of those Hesketh and Flannigan are at Sholing, Gape and McCarthy at Wycombe, McQueen obviously retired, Turnball at Tranmere.

Watts still here, was on loan at Morecambe last year. Tchaptchet is at Grenoble.

Had to look up Seager, he's at Dorking.

[qwertyell]

15 minutes ago, The Cat said:

Watts still here, was on loan at Morecambe last year

He was released in July. Currently without a club.

[Turkish]

7 hours ago, Saint_clark said:

Simon Clifford? 

It's not this guy regardless, Gifton Noel Williams was playing for Burnley when we got relegated from the Prem in 2005. 

Yes it’s Simon Clifford. My son attends a football school twice a week he set up, it’s not run by him anymore as he’s handed the reigns over to another guy who he mentored, I assume he is still an owner though as it’s big in our area so turning over quite a bit of cash. Clifford is now running a thing called Integer which is based more around football fitness, diet and more aimed at the teenagers upwards.

cannot fault the football school though, my son has been doing it for about 18 months. it’s all based on touch and control. There are four from his grassroots team that go and they are technically head and shoulders above the other players in the team. Quite a few kids from the area have gone onto play at a very high level that have been through it including Archie Gray who is now at Leeds. He has two younger bothers currently in the school who the coaches believe will be even better. 
 

clifford is by all accounts a bit of a knob but can’t fault his methods for kids. it would work well at the clubs young academy levels but I think if he went in and told older players what to do he’d soon get shot down. 

[64saint]

20 minutes ago, Turkish said:

 

clifford is by all accounts a bit of a knob but can’t fault his methods for kids. it would work well at the clubs young academy levels but I think if he went in and told older players what to do he’d soon get shot down. 

Isn't that what happened when he was invited in to take a training session with the senior squad by Rupert Lowe. Memory serves me correctly Arry Redknapp was manager at the time and it's fair to say he was not impressed.

[Turkish]

9 hours ago, The Kraken said:

Very interesting programme just finished now on BBC1, a bunch of lads who got released by pro clubs and are being managed in a special new group being run by Gifton Noel Williams. One of the lads is Jake Flannigan who played for Saints. Episode 2 just played but they’re all available on iPlayer. Good watching.

 

cheers, will take a look, love stuff like this.

[Turkish]

Just now, 64saint said:

Isn't that what happened when he was invited in to take a training session with the senior squad by Rupert Lowe. Memory serves me correctly Arry Redknapp was manager at the time and it's fair to say he was not impressed.

Yes exactly that, i can well imagine him going into a pro club and coaching a load of senior players the way he does wouldn't go down well.

It's brilliant for kids for learning how to control, pass, move, manipulate the ball, use both feet - they are big on that. At grassroots level you can tell the ones that have been going, our lads first touch is excellent, we get loads of comments from other teams on how comfortable our players look on the ball whatever the conditions. 

[Fan The Flames]

Grassroots football doesn't concentrate on the technical stuff enough, most kids get board doing it. A colleagues lad went to futsal from a young age, he spent weeks just rolling the ball around with his foot. He touch was years ahead of others in his football team. Last I heard he was at Colchesters academy.

[spyinthesky]

Watched the programme last night.

Felt really sorry for Jake Flannigan

[Turkish]

21 minutes ago, Fan The Flames said:

Grassroots football doesn't concentrate on the technical stuff enough, most kids get board doing it. A colleagues lad went to futsal from a young age, he spent weeks just rolling the ball around with his foot. He touch was years ahead of others in his football team. Last I heard he was at Colchesters academy.

It's difficult though. I coach it myself. Its only now we are getting to U11s level we've actually got a team of players that want to be there. For the first few years it was because their older brother or sister played in an older age group, made to go by the their parents, parents who think their kid can barely run properly is the new Messi, some even used us for cheap child care whilst they cleared off for the morning. We used to have rolling subs as they promote equal game time so we'd have kids during games run off to the park or play with dogs and not want to come on. A lot of that lot didn't want to learn skills but you have to treat them all equally so cant be favouring the ones that want to be there helping them develop and ignore the ones that dont. That's why we've encouraged the more interested ones to do stuff outside of the club if they want to develop. Plus grassroots coaches are generally just parents who have done a course,  you cant expect them to teach kids the things they learn from proper coaching. luckily our age group i the other coach both played at a decent level but some of the other ages groups openly admit they dont know anything about football really. 

[Fan The Flames]

6 hours ago, Turkish said:

It's difficult though. I coach it myself. Its only now we are getting to U11s level we've actually got a team of players that want to be there. For the first few years it was because their older brother or sister played in an older age group, made to go by the their parents, parents who think their kid can barely run properly is the new Messi, some even used us for cheap child care whilst they cleared off for the morning. We used to have rolling subs as they promote equal game time so we'd have kids during games run off to the park or play with dogs and not want to come on. A lot of that lot didn't want to learn skills but you have to treat them all equally so cant be favouring the ones that want to be there helping them develop and ignore the ones that dont. That's why we've encouraged the more interested ones to do stuff outside of the club if they want to develop. Plus grassroots coaches are generally just parents who have done a course,  you cant expect them to teach kids the things they learn from proper coaching. luckily our age group i the other coach both played at a decent level but some of the other ages groups openly admit they dont know anything about football really. 

When you compare football to other sports, lots of the other sports spend a long time early on getting to grips with technique and then building on it, what ever the level the kid is at. With football this only happens with the good kids. 

It sounds like your son is at a higher level then mine and he is probably self motivated. It's very difficult keeping the boys interested in skills sessions in the lower divisions, so teams only do a bit.

I help out with my sons football team and we have had to unpick bad technique, they will be U14s this year and we have only just got them to not play playground style football, and its been really hard work with a few arguements along the way.

Our boys love the idea of playing football and want to be at training, they just don't want to train, they want to have a 90 minute kick about, passing to their mates and taking the piss out of the shittier kids. And if we just concentrated on the stuff we should do, they would slowly get disinterested.

They haven't made the connection between working a bit harder and mastering some skills will make them better and they will enjoy it more.

Still they are outside playing sport and having a good time, coaching kids isn't only about future pros but encouraging them to get into a sport that they can play at whatever level for a long time. I was/am a very average player but have played football pretty much every week for almost the last 50 years.

[Turkish]

Thanks for the recommendation @The Kraken watched the first two last night. Really, really good. Feel sorry for Jake Flannigan, how unlucky has he been, had no idea he'd done both ACLs. Seems like he was a really talented player. You can see how so many miss out due to their attitude, look at that Birmingham keeper, sacked for shoplifting now acting like a bit of a bellend on this, you'd think he'd learn his lesson. Maybe he has, only two in.

[Jazzfunk]

The lad Jordan who went on to sign for Watford looks potentially a really good player, if he can keep his attitude in check. Just said he wanted to make it to get his mum out of poverty which pulled on my heartstrings and clearly resonated with the (excellent) Gifton Noel-Williams who came across so well in the show. 

[The Kraken]

6 minutes ago, Jazzfunk said:

The lad Jordan who went on to sign for Watford looks potentially a really good player, if he can keep his attitude in check. Just said he wanted to make it to get his mum out of poverty which pulled on my heartstrings and clearly resonated with the (excellent) Gifton Noel-Williams who came across so well in the show. 

Looks like he’s gone to Salford so obviously didn’t make it at Watford.