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I saw RIP Jeremy trending on twitter and it was this:

 

 

Released by City at 17 years old and committed suicide. That's gutting stuff. I've talked to a few lads that had been released from Newcastle over the years and there's no aftercare. They're basically invited into the office, told their scholarship won't be renewed "we'll help you find a new club" (they don't) and that's it.

 

Just imagine how heartbreaking it must be to find out you 'haven't made it' and you're just left to fend for yourself as a young lad still.

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The pressure is nuts, man. I know one lad that was constantly measuring their height to see if they were hitting 6', as they were told they were 'too small'. Pretty much body shaming kids.

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Guest Howaythetoon

I saw RIP Jeremy trending on twitter and it was this:

 

 

Released by City at 17 years old and committed suicide. That's gutting stuff. I've talked to a few lads that had been released from Newcastle over the years and there's no aftercare. They're basically invited into the office, told their scholarship won't be renewed "we'll help you find a new club" (they don't) and that's it.

 

Just imagine how heartbreaking it must be to find out you 'haven't made it' and you're just left to fend for yourself as a young lad still.

 

Tragic, poor bairn and his family, that’s the downside of academy life more needs done by every club to look after those they are happy to have them sign their lives away to for years and years only just to sack them off. RIP young man! The game is a compete and utter shit fest at every level right now, close it all down in its current form and restart all over, fan owned, regulated, no billionaire businessman and corporations, they can all fuck off!

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I don't want to sound heartless here as it's awful, but what is the club supposed to do? They can't have their academy full of kids that aren't good enough. It's a job and a business at the end of the day.

 

Genuine question by the way. If the lad wasn't good enough, what do the club do?

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It's the manner that children are treat and then just let go. That life and relationship that has been built up for years is suddenly gone. Newcastle used to slide a few of the let go scholars into the Foundation as community coaches, if they couldn't find a deal elsewhere.

 

I don't think anyone would expect a club to keep players on, but there needs to be some sort of aftercare approach and certainly a better way of letting kids go.

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There should be a support system for kids not given a contract. It can simply be something that sets them up with a new club, or if the player isn't going to find a new club, some sort of trade school or a path to a job within football.

 

I'm sure there's a lot more that needs to be done, but clubs should have a responsibility to help kids who's life has basically only been football for most of their teenage years.

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Mike Calvin has done some really good writing about the issue and I think he made a documentary for BT Sport about it. The academies hoover up huge amounts of kids who devote their entire formative years to this pipe dream then over 99% of them are just fucked off, after the point where their education is still possible.

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Guest Howaythetoon

I don't want to sound heartless here as it's awful, but what is the club supposed to do? They can't have their academy full of kids that aren't good enough. It's a job and a business at the end of the day.

 

Genuine question by the way. If the lad wasn't good enough, what do the club do?

 

Provide kids with alternative routes into the game, coaching, fitness, scouting, finding other clubs, network with other clubs more, seriously you’re not being harsh but it’s basic duty of care stuff and if a kid is willing to commit so many years of his life to a club, look after them when he’s inevitably not going to make it, and if he hasn’t made it, why, what more can be done, seriously most academy kids are there to make up the numbers because they need that one star player or two who do stand out to have a team to play in, likes of NUFC end up regressing the one or two star player by focusing on developing them at the detriment of others which in turn becomes detrimental to everyone, stars included, it’s a fucking joke.

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Guest Howaythetoon

It's the PFA's responsibility imo, but they'll do fuck all as they are the most hapless union going.

 

It’s not as these are not professional footballers by this stage half of them and even then, ha ha, they are more of a joke than anyone.

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I’ve seen it close hand with my nephew a decade or more back when he was at NUFC and now with my own son, I’m seriously thinking the best environment for him is outside of an academy, I’ve seen some grassroots clubs’ team batter academy teams and for example Wideopen is superior to NUFC in every way even fucking facilities, I’d rather my kid went there than NUFC. Of course half their kids are also at academies, I know who does the better coaching, who has the better environment and who means the best for their kids... and it ain’t the academies!

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Kid gives ten years to a club from being a child, sacked off, kid makes it gives a few years get millions and if stays ten years gets a testimonial, a coaching job, maybe player manager or manager, ambassador role, job for life. If not at the club in media, at another club, as a pundit, for a newspaper, for a betting company, its all wrong. Mind parents have a lot to do with current environment and are to blame also. Academies need kids more than kids need academies and they do this by getting at dads who need their kids to be at academies and the sad truth is 99.9% don’t make it and never will and then what? Double edged sword, dad, all those years and time and money, well that worked out well. Parents need to wake up and accept that academy life is not the be all and end all and their kid does not need academy football, rather they need their kids mostly to make up the numbers.

 

Need I say more...

 

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