‘You don’t really think about not making the grade’
With thousands of academy hopefuls released every season, rejected players follow wildly different routes to rebuild their lives, as Sam Wallace discovers ‘It was toxic in the second year of my time at academy. Nothing was stable’
Cecil Thomas can remember the day Crawley Town told him that he would not be getting a professional deal after a two-year scholarship, a cursory end to all the hours of his childhood devoted to football that led to the one moment every 18-year-old hopeful dreads.
Thomas, now 21, is a very decent striker, but like thousands of boys rejected from the academy system at clubs in the four top divisions, from the under-nines to the under-16s as well the exceptional few who make scholarships but no more, he was one of those deemed not good enough. There are few more intensely competitive paths in the lives of teenage boys in the United Kingdom than the one that leads to a professional contract at a football club.
The number of those rejected at every stage along the way in academy football remains hazy and even the Premier League could not put a figure on it. The Professional Footballers’ Association’s “active list”, an online database where non-contracted players can register with their CVS in the hope of catching the eye of club scouts, had 707 names on it at the last count. Of those, 461 were professional at one time and 239 were former scholars, the modern term for apprentices.
As for the thousands who fall out the system between the ages of nine and 16, or are released after scholarships never to play professional football, many are “football’s forgotten”, although it would be hard to consider Thomas quite that way. His is one of the more remarkable stories of those who have dusted themselves down postfootball and launched a new career in a discipline every bit as demanding.
When we spoke this week, Thomas was on his way home after another full day’s training as a dancer at the Italia Conti Arts Centre in Guildford, where he has been granted a rare full scholarship. Growing up in Reigate, Surrey, he was an exceptional dancer as a teenager and turned down a scholarship at Italia Conti at 16 to pursue a football career. After Crawley Town and a trial at Nottingham Forest that led nowhere, he rekindled his other talent.
“It was toxic at Crawley in the second year of my scholarship,” he says. “I saw five chief executives and six managers come and go. Nothing was stable. The first-team manager would call us up to train with the first team and then not even know our names. I got released after my second year. I needed a job and went into London to some dance classes. I got tagged into a post on Facebook asking for dancers in a music video and ended up getting a featured part, and it went from there.”
Thomas’s story is one of the more unusual – there are not many young footballers whom the system spits out who have a second talent to fall back upon. His career is going from strength to strength, with his life in football opening other doors. He is also the regular body double for Marcus Rashford in commercials involving the Manchester United forward. Production teams are allocated limited time with the stars themselves, so much of the footage that can be done without them is performed by understudies who have the necessary skills and physique.
In the PFA offices in Manchester, the helpline for academy players and their parents is overseen by George Bowyer, who has first-hand knowledge of the system. Originally from Stockport, he was a scholar at Rochdale before being released. He played non-league in the north as he contemplated his next move.
The PFA phoneline is for boys at all stages of their development, offering advice on everything from gaining qualifications outside football to dealing with agents and moving clubs. It was the level-two coaching badge that Bowyer did at Rochdale through the PFA that helped to kick-start his career in the world outside professional football. “I always say to parents that it’s about trying to make sure their son is happy playing football,” he says. “If he is lucky enough to go all the way then that’s a bonus.”
After a player is released without a professional deal, usually around March, his last stop is one of the assessment trials run by the League Football Education (LFE) organisation, which oversees the EFL clubs’ education programme. Around 240 hopefuls each year take part in four trials in different parts of the country at the end of April and start of May.
There are many scouts in attendance, but it is very much a buyer’s market.
The LFE says that there are around 1,250 to 1,300 players at EFL clubs alone doing two-year scholarships, and all undertake
some kind of education. In the past, it was the case that teenage boys who were released after apprenticeships had all but lost those crucial two years when their non-football peers were doing A levels or vocational post-16 qualifications.
The attitude to education in football is changing, especially at the very top. Manchester City offer their scholars fully paid fees at the private St Bede’s College and point out that it is not just the finances that persuade many boys and their parents to sign for the club. For those at less wealthy EFL clubs, there are BTEC diplomas, NVQS and a range of life-skills programmes offered by the LFE. From the 2016 graduating generation of EFL scholars,
45 per cent gained professional contracts, 22 per cent went into semi-professional football, 20 per cent into employment and 10 per cent into education.
Among those who have decided on education is George Barmby, 18, formerly a scholar at Scunthorpe United and the son of Nick, now retired after 23 caps for England and a fine professional career that included, among others, Tottenham, Middlesbrough, Everton, Liverpool and his hometown club, Hull City. George’s older brother Jack is a professional at Portland Timbers in Major League Soccer and both Barmby boys are now in the United States.
George started his four-year soccer scholarship at Lander University in South Carolina this month with hopes of a career in medicine. “I absolutely loved my time at Scunthorpe and I wouldn’t change it,” he says. “You get told not everyone makes it, but you don’t really think about what you will do afterwards. I had talked about playing in America with my team-mates and when I was told I wasn’t getting a contract I thought, ‘Why not?’”
George suffered a broken metatarsal in his first year as a scholar, which required a screw to be inserted and then reinserted in the bone. He got to know his surgeon so well that he was invited into the operating theatre as an observer and his interest in medicine grew from there. He was always realistic about making it as a professional – “the standard at academies is that good” – and went to see his coach at Scunthorpe to sound him out long before the final decision was made.
The LFE is seeing more former English academy boys going to America or to play in the lower leagues in countries like Sweden than ever before. One was Jamie Hopcutt, released by York City, who caught the eye of Swedish club Ostersund at a trial in Birmingham. Now 25, he is part of the Ostersund side who were a revelation in their first Swedish top-flight season and eliminated Turkish big-hitters Galatasaray from the Europa League qualifiers last month.
“The American colleges asked me for a highlights video, so being a striker that was goals and hold-up play,” George says. “You include a football CV, the clubs you have played for. I got a lot of offers from all over America, but the one I took in the end really stood out for me. The coach wanted me from the start.”
He is too young to remember much of his father’s career, although as a Hull boy George will never forget his father’s part in the 2008 play-off final that resulted in their club’s promotion to the Premier League. Nick was one of the graduates of the Football Association’s former centre of excellence, Lilleshall. George’s scholarship in America is by no means the easy option either, there is training every day, games all over the state and beyond as well as the studying,
“I’m loving it,” he says. “The facilities are second to none. The best advice I can give to lads in academies at English clubs is that it is a great experience. If you make it as a professional then, great. But in your second year always remember to keep one eye out for Plan B.
“If you don’t find out you are being released until April or May, it’s too late to apply for university or a scholarship in America.
“You are expected to put all your eggs in one basket but you can’t be sucked into relying on that.”
‘Lads in academies at English clubs must remember to keep one eye out for Plan B’