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Walking Down The Halbeath Road


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1 hour ago, Wacky said:

Has anyone read this thread on .net? 


https://dafc.net/forum/read.php?f=1&i=1924990&t=1924990

some of the posts seem reasonable, but I don’t think this academy/training ground should be closed as some would like? We don’t even know if it’s purely for the enhancement of Pars players. I’m only guessing here, but Pars may benefit from players coming through this system, but maybe not all of them. Again I don’t know but Pars may only benefit from players we sign, while other far bigger clubs may get to skim players off the top before we get near them? I’m sure the talk was about players from all over the world coming to this facility, and this was how our investors were going to recoup their investment? It may not mean that Pars will get every prospect coming out of there? 
I think it’ll be a completely separate entity from DAFC. What do others think? 

I'm fully behind having a training ground, I think having a base where you can consistently call home is key to match preparation, as well as just selling yourself to prospective players. They spend more time at the training ground than they do the stadium*, it's a big deal, and it could really elevate the club. Fwiw I think the bit about players coming from all over the world is a nonsense, there's Hearts and Hibs training grounds just over the bridge. 

 

Where I disagree is in the necessity for a youth academy, that's a seperate issue and a seperate costing. From the meeting last week it's apparently costing us 6 times as much as it cost us as part of the Fife Academy, that's fucking daft. 

 

 

*Unless you are say Raith Rovers and have a plastic pitch at the stadium, for me though with all the rumblings I get why we didn't install one at the stadium. 

Edited by HoBNob
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1 hour ago, Wacky said:

Has anyone read this thread on .net? 


https://dafc.net/forum/read.php?f=1&i=1924990&t=1924990

some of the posts seem reasonable, but I don’t think this academy/training ground should be closed as some would like? We don’t even know if it’s purely for the enhancement of Pars players. I’m only guessing here, but Pars may benefit from players coming through this system, but maybe not all of them. Again I don’t know but Pars may only benefit from players we sign, while other far bigger clubs may get to skim players off the top before we get near them? I’m sure the talk was about players from all over the world coming to this facility, and this was how our investors were going to recoup their investment? It may not mean that Pars will get every prospect coming out of there? 
I think it’ll be a completely separate entity from DAFC. What do others think? 

Having had a flick through that thread reminds me why it don't go on there.

Loads of folk conflating the training pitches with the academy which isn't helpful.

The pitches should save money in the long run, unless they train at EEP then there are costs and time implications, once we have our own place we can train 24/7 365 if we do wanted, I would hope that would help players in recovery and the help develop younger players with more time on the training pitch.

In terms of the academy, we have pretty much always had one, I don't think the FEFA model worked particularly well because most of the other clubs couldn't fund it. Obviously for pro youth the old firm Hearts, Hibs and Dundee United will probably be our main competition and will take the best youth prospects unless they have a tie to the club or can't commit to traveling outwith the west Fife area.

I think the academy has been successful enough in the past for bringing through players that can play a part in our squad, it hasn't been so successful in making sellable assets which obviously needs work.

Matty Todd probably the only significant asset currently in the squad from out academy. Whilst McCann may have some interest I don't think anyone is paying £100k+ for him currently.

However if you have aspirations of top flight football then you have to have an academy to get the solidarity payments, so once there it would cost you £250k not to have an academy, and I get we aren't there nor are likely to be there next season and probably not for a while yet. But the investors clearly want to get to the top flight and if they want to pay for an academy and training site then I don't think it would be wise to dissuade them from it because hopefully long after they have gone both should still be working well.

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There is no need for an academy or a separate training facility. A plastic pitch should have been laid and EEP should have been made our base. Would have been a fraction of the cost. I'll die on this hill.

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8 minutes ago, Rob1885 said:

There is no need for an academy or a separate training facility. A plastic pitch should have been laid and EEP should have been made our base. Would have been a fraction of the cost. I'll die on this hill.

We have already patented this idea at SP. 😉

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1 minute ago, HoBNob said:

How does that idea look if they're banned from the top league? 

Don't think that is something you will have to concern yourself with anytime soon.

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12 hours ago, HoBNob said:

How does that idea look if they're banned from the top league? 

A big "if" and would deal with that if we got there. There would be worse problems to have. Such as posting 7 figure losses before an academy/training centre is even built.

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Can’t be bothered reading .net, but I think the training facility should be a really positive move. Without knowing too much, it must be expensive hiring pitches for all of our first team and all of our academy teams to train on. We’ll also have to pay pitch hire for our reserve/academy games. That can’t be cheap. If we’re installing a high quality artificial pitch and maintaining the grass pitches properly, it’s a facility that should make a difference in terms of training.

Academy is one I’m unsure of right now. Kind of on the fence with that one. It will be great, if we can produce players that go on to have great careers and make us money. But in setting up an academy, we have to appreciate it’s a long term investment, that won’t see financial rewards for 5+ years. I think setting it up when we did was a questionable decision. There’s also no guarantee of success. There’s a lot that could go wrong and there’s no guarantee that talented players will even want to come here, even before we worry about the standard of coaching/education we are able to provide.

We should have waited until the first team was sorted and consistently getting top end championship revenue for the academy, in my opinion. We also probably should have waited until we had the training facility there for them to use, rather than having them training/playing all over Fife every week and paying for hire of so many pitches.

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13 minutes ago, Stellaboz said:

We'll only produce good players with good coaches and a proper route to the first team.

I'm wondering who Head Of will be

Would be good to rename the post

Head of baller creation

Much more sensible than the current title.

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14 hours ago, North West said:

Or yourselves. We'll get you in the play offs and dump you out. It's written in the stars.

Don't think it is arithmetically possible for us to land up in the relegation play offs but you keep dreaming.

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