Best Players To Have Ever Come Through Our Youth System

Yea it was a bit before my time so I'm on shaky ground regards Loofa's early days. I was just making the point that the reason nobody's picking him as our best ever academy graduate is that he's not generally regarded as one. Rightly or wrongly.

 

Luther did play quite a number of games in our youth teams and he went for a trial with Watford at the age of 15 while he was still at school. Watford's academy did not exist at that time.

https://watfordlegends.com/interviews/luther-blissett/

 

Sure, yeah, absolutely; EPPP was always clearly a huge pisstake.

 

I hate to say it but... David Connolly

 

Anthony McNamee .

Never fulfilled his potential , but was electric and lit up a number of games in a very dull Watford team .

 

Who was the last homegrown player to make 50 first team appearances? Not a quiz, I haven't got a clue

 

What about David James?

Watford academy product who went on to play over 50 games an full international level for England, can't really beat that. Alright I know he was a Luton fan, but he had all the natural physical attributes as a keeper, (just not quite there in his mental attributes to be a top player) and to think Simon Sheppard was even more highly rated at first!

One of my greatest moments was having a training session with him and Rod Thomas, both unbelievable prospects.

 

Shamefully, probably Maps and then Doyley?

 

Luke O Nien ?

 

Tommie Hoban?

 

Doyley?

 

I think you might be right and if you are it certainly is shameful

 

Rod Thomas: once billed as the ‘next Pelé’.

 

Dominic Blizzard.

 

McNamee was a more exciting talent than Young but he just didn't kick on.

 

Sancho is probably the best but I don't count him as he played for us

 

Lee Hodson was a good player. I recall sitting at a pre season friendly at Northampton and people getting on his back for not playing higher, and his mum was sat directly behind me desperately trying to defend him as the managers instructions (MM I believe) were to not cross the half way line.

I can also remember walking out of the training ground just a couple of months after his debut and he was parking a huge and fully loaded Audi that looked wildly out of place with such a young lad getting out of it.

 

Exciting to the fans, yes. I well remember his debut. However, I also remember Ray Lewington appearing on Sky early on in his time as manager and talking about Ashley Young, who had barely made a first team appearance by then. He said that he and his coaching staff were sure they had an exceptional talent on their hands who would go on to have a great career at the top of the game. He was right and I think fans have to accept that, in general, those whose career is in football do know more about it than we do.

 

I think he had the ability to have done far more than he did in the game. He was a huge talent. Either way nobody can diminish what Young did with his career, especially after starting it with rejection which he had to react to.

 

Ok so firstly thanks to everyone for the names put out there.

So I have a follow up question for you all. It appears we are bringing through fewer players into the first team. So we are getting less benefit.

If you consider the costs, how would you all feel if we scrapped the whole youth set up , right from whatever age it starts at (U’8’s?) all the way to U23. Instead we have an old fashioned reserve side, cut our playing staff right down. Pick up decent prospects released from other clubs on short term deals instead to be mixed in with the first team squad needing game time.

Seems to me we are fighting a losing battle because we can’t get the most talented youngsters join us, if we do get one they can get poached easily anyway so it’s all wasted money surely?

From top to bottom how much will our entire youth set up cost over a year? £1m? More?

 

Sean Murray would have been a hell of a player if his attitude had been better.

 

I agree. He had the sense to turn down Man City which looked like he was confident enough in his ability to kick on and work his way up rather than take the easy route. A shame as he was brilliant to watch when he first started playing.

 

But, he's ended up a Scummer.

 

When we were previously in the Championship, we were still getting kids choose us as the prospect of getting a chance in the first team were greater. When the Pozzo regime started and Premier league promotion occurred, I suppose quite rightly, the club focused less so on it. To be a Premier league club and having a youth system being category 3 or whatever was pretty embarrassing as we were playing the likes of Stevenage etc and not top flight reserve and youth teams. I think you either go all in and spend big or not at all nowadays, and go the B team route.

We are starting to see benches full of youth players again due to the league rules and the current situation, so things might change again but I doubt it. If I was the Pozzos, I would go the B team route, if I was just a fan, I would go and focus on the academy. To be honest, I would take league 1 football if we had a team of home-grown, young and enthusiastic players with a real connection to Watford and the community, but I know I would be in the minority there. A team of young Luke O'Nein running his backside off pre-match, so enthused to be training with the first team, and Gavin Massey, walking from his front door 2 minutes along to Vicarage Road would be a dream.

 

John Joe O'Toole was a weird one, burst through, did well, then tailed off as fast as he burst through.

 

Maeby not the best ones but Ian Richardson and Harry Forrester.

 

Is he still coaching/getting his badges at the scum?