How ball boys and girls are being weaponised IN FOOTBALL’S DARK ARTS
UNLESS you are a football nut, you will not know the name Oakley Cannonier. The 19-yearold striker is highly rated in the Liverpool academy but he is yet to make his mark on the first team.
He is the kid credited alongside Trent Alexander-Arnold, Mohamed Salah and Jurgen Klopp for helping Liverpool win their sixth European Cup in 2019. Why? He was the Johnny- on-the- spot ball boy who helped the Reds overturn a 3-0 deficit to beat Barcelona 4-3.
Within a second of Liverpool winning a corner at 3-3 on aggregate, Cannonier smoothly pinged the ball to Alexander-Arnold. The rest is history. The Liverpool full back fired in a corner to Divock Origi, who scored as Barcelona backs were turned.
This was not just Liverpool capitalising on a lapse in concentration. Elite football is in its marginal gains era and this savvy corner routine was by design. Anfield analysts had spotted Barcelona players often switched off when play was halted, and noted Liverpool should up the tempo at dead-ball situations or throw-ins. So Liverpool staffers lectured the ball boys to be quicker. Carl Lancaster, who has worked as an academy coach at Liverpool and the FA, was key in co-ordinating them.
The incident was a full- circle moment given Alexander-Arnold was once a ball boy. Cannonier, for the record, had a prolific scoring record in youth football but has been thwarted by injury. He is back training now and hopes to return soon.
Amid the constant search for an extra 0.1 per cent advantage, ball-boy tutors could soon follow roles such as setpiece analysts and throw-in coaches. In League Two for example, AFC Wimbledon employ a substitutions adviser.
Is this growing use of ball boys a positive step in making academy players feel important, or is it weaponising kids for the dark arts? One former top-flight coach told Mail Sport that ball boys are now being ‘taken hostage’ by clubs.
THISdebate was highlighted in the helter-skelter FA Cup classic at Molineux on Saturday, after which Coventry boss Mark Robins was branded ‘disgusting’ for celebrating in the face of a young Wolves ball boy who had been time-wasting.
Robins’ behaviour was intimidating and probably crossed the line, though there is an argument that it was fair game given Wolves’ negative tactics.
Whatever side of the debate you stand on, ball boys are clearly being used by clubs to gain an edge. Innovative coaches, including Klopp, Manchester City’s Pep Guardiola and Jose Mourinho have done so.
Against Atletico Madrid in 2022, Manchester City knew Diego Simeone’s side would look to employ trickery to slow the game down. So Guardiola sent a video message to a group of ball boys, from the club’s Under 12s to 14s, telling them to focus as if they were playing themselves. ‘You’re a big part of the big match,’ he said. The Catalan had been a ball boy at the Nou Camp himself and there are pictures of him looking awestruck at Johan Cruyff, who went on to be his mentor. He did add, though, that he had ‘never forgiven’ Gary Lineker for snubbing a request for an autograph.
Mourinho was also a ball boy and once invited a kid into the dressing room at Tottenham to thank him for a quick throw that led to a goal. ‘I love intelligent ball boys like I was,’ he said. ‘I was a brilliant ball boy.
‘This kid was brilliant. He reads the game and makes an important assist. He’s not there just to look up at the stands, lights or scarves. He’s living the game and playing it very well.’
In the men’s game, most are boys from the academy squad, though at some clubs such as Chelsea, they are mixed. They tend not to be paid but will be fed and given club attire to wear — plus a free front-row seat to watch the action of course. Manchester United use boys and girls from local schools which are partners of their charity foundation. In Sunday’s game it was Middleton Technology School and the ESSA Academy. In the Women’s Super League, it’s mainly girls from their academy teams.
Historic reports first mention ball boys in 1905, when Chelsea’s 23- stone goalkeeper William ‘Fatty’ Foulke used to bring two kids to the pitch to save him having to gather any stray shots. Folklore suggests the chant ‘Who ate all the pies?’ was first sung at Foulke’s expense.
Still, the use of ball boys didn’t take off on a wider scale until the 1990s. Prior to that, police officers behind goals used to chase balls back from the open terraces. The ‘multi-ball system’ is a quirk of the modern game.
Incidents have seen kids make headlines for the wrong reasons, too, including Chelsea’s Eden Hazard infamously kicking a Swansea youngster in 2013.
Charlie Morgan, then 17, held on to the ball to prevent Chelsea recycling possession and Hazard saw red. Like former ball boy Alexander-Arnold, Morgan is now a millionaire, but not through football — he set up Au Vodka, worth about £150million.
THEonly mention of ball boys in the FA guidelines is how their clothing should not clash with the teams’ kits, though it is understood conversations have taken place to brief clubs on not using kids in a negative way.
Thomas Gronnemark, the former throw-in coach at Liverpool, tells Mail Sport: ‘Clubs are taking ball boys hostage. They play a big part in football and gaining an advantage, something I know a lot about, but they are starting to be used in a negative way and this is so wrong.
‘If a famous person at a club tells you, “Hold on to the ball when there is a throw-in”, of course you’ll do what you are told, they are role models. This is bad for the sport and these kids. It should be punished — not the ball boys but the clubs.
‘When I was at Liverpool, we played away against Man City and their ball boy gave us the ball fast — we went on to score! But that should be the way. They should not take sides, that is not in the spirit of the game.’
A coach at a Football League club tells Mail Sport that his team have instructed the youngsters to ‘ run to the ball when we need a goal, walk when we are winning’ and predicts it won’t be long before ball boys are assigned by the FA instead.
In tennis, training ball boys and girls for Wimbledon has been described as ‘ like an X Factor boot camp’. The kids, from schools in the SW postcode, are not called by name but by number. The training is to ensure fairness, and acts of favouritism to one player can see them sent home, though this is rare. About 1,000 start the process in February and do three hours of training a week, before 250 are picked for July’s Championships.
Tennis has flirted with the idea of robot ball boys powered by artificial intelligence. Football is unlikely to follow suit yet but it might take note of tennis’s fairer approach on the touchlines.
Aidy Boothroyd and Neil Warnock clashed when at Watford and Sheffield United respectively, as Boothroyd told kids to offer home players towels to dry balls before long throw- ins. Warnock snapped and placed his own towel by the halfway line.
Top-flight bosses asked the authorities to step in when Tony Pulis’s Stoke employed similar tactics for Rory Delap’s lobs into the box. This, though, did not fall foul of the FA’s rules which are thin on this subject. They may not be for long, however. If the growing trend of dark arts on the touchline catches on, the FA will surely be forced to act.