Producing our own players...

[hotspur61]

Hi there,

first thread I've started, only been here a couple of days.

Our strategy of picking up young Brits for £1-2m and trying to develop them is a sound one, but what do you all feel about our ability to develop talent from scratch?

In the last 30 years or so, we have produced the following who then played for Spurs and became internationals: (years estimate, not exact)

1975: Hoddle;
1992: Barmby;
1995: Campbell;
1995: Carr;
1999: King.

And that's it!

We later produced Crouch (Chelski season ticket holder) but Pleat sold him for £60k. Also Luke Young, sold to Charlton for £3m.

In the meantime other London clubs with the same catchment area have produced huge amounts, esp West Ham: Carrick, Ferdinand, Ferdinand, Lampard and many others.

Charlton produced Defoe. Even the Arse have been successful (although they offload them) with Bentley who will play for England, and Chelski with Terry.
Watford produced David James.

Why is our record so much worse than West Ham's?

And can we realistically say that any of our current British Isles Academy players will ever make the grade with us, let alone playing for their country?

[Daniisco]

Realistically I doubt any of our our current reserve players could make the grade at international level, but I'm sure we have some younger youths players (10-14s) that will come through in time. I think West Ham had that special time when they were producing loads of international players. Not sure if they have many now.

Walker is another that springs to mind btw.

[spurs_craig]

a big factor/problem is money.....not lack of it but the fact we've never been afraid to dip in to the transfer market and snap up a player to fill a gap rather than look to the youth/reserve, over the past few years we have had a few tasty looking youngsters that just needed a few games but never got them

dean marney and mark yeats  jump straight to my mind...both looked great prospects and have done pretty well while out on loan but never really got a chance to shine....dean marney got a start against everton and scored 2 fantastic goals yet was dropped back to the reserves after a few games....

maybe if we were a skint club and NEEDED to promote from within we would see a few more youngsters playing!!

this season has been sort of the same...our squad has been screeming out for a decent left midfeilder yet adel tarrabt has been stuck in the reserves and reto zeigler has been sent out on loan to sampdoria for the season..
while we have tried lennon on the left?? and wayne"peanut head"routledge has been on loan at fulham?  confused...yep me too

on a plus yet quite scary side...our reserves/youth have some great looking kids(not in a pervy way)  
d.deviette
t.pekhart
l.mills
c.lee
j.o'hara
alnwick
the list goes on....

[THWH90]

Yeh, I see where your coming from all though Martin has picked out some gr8 young players (huddlestone,lennon,dawson). Also last yr our U18s won their southern league + played Man U in the final, we did lose bt tht shows the lads are decent...

[theospurs]

i thought j. o'hara was ameant to be briliant...

[Becks]

Could be thinking of someone else, but I'm sure I read that Terry came from some one else's academy.

[brokok_spurs]

tommy huddlestone

[Yiddo]

tommy huddlestone

Huddlestone came from Derby.

www.planetspurs.com

[cookey999]

I think West Ham just had a purple patch and were lucky that a few came through at once.

[Gino-Ginelli]

Relatively speaking, the better the club the less likely players are to come through as the gap is bigger.

We have developed some decent players who go on to be established pro's elsewhere, usually lower levels of the league, but as long as that turn a profit thats well enough for me. The Rooneys of this world only come along once in a generation.