Opinion - Gary Harwood

As news of the impending sale of Trevor Benjamin broke, there was naturally plenty of debate among supporters about the fee (£1m guaranteed rising to at least £1.5m on appearances) and Gary Harwood wrote the following article on the U's Net message board.

I will be 'off the air' after tomorrow for a short while so I thought you might like to read my views on our youth system.

In 1990 John Beck convinced us that we should spend more money on our youth system and make that aspect one of the most professional parts of the Club as well as, over time, develop it into one of the best systems in the country.

Why?

Quite simply because we need to sell players for big money every year to survive. What better way than to develop younsters from the ages of 8 and 9 into players that can move on to the best clubs in the country and, along the way, help us potentially climb the divisions and keep us in business.

Gary Johnson really started the whole thing off (we had played it at quite literaaly before then) under the direction of John Beck. Our youth system has gone from strength to strength since then and the production from it is now generally regarded as one of the best in the country. Among others there has been Rowett, Craddock (sort of), Hyde, Granville, Beall (perhaps we wuz robbed?) and now Benjamin. If we had not developed these young players, and then subsequently sold them, this Club would have gone out of business 3 or 4 years ago.

We spend an enormous sum of money each year (for a club in our financial position) on developing young players. Quite simply our plan has always been to sell our best young players when the time is right. When that time is, is naturally a matter of opinion but the Board clearly knows the state of the Club's finances and, you really ought to accept, knows when the time is right.

This strategy will end when our re-developed stadium is earning enough non-football profits to make the football club financially self sufficient. Until then let's all hope our youth system continues to produce the Granvilles, Hydes, Benjamins etc. of this world. The signs are good with Chillingworth, Youngs, Marshall, Tann to name just a few who, in our opinion, will follow in these footsteps.

I am also pleased that there are still a few Premiership clubs who are prepared to speculate on young English players like Trevor. Perhaps one of the reasons our national team is in the state it is is because most Premiership teams will not speculate on good young players from the lower divisions and develop them into top Premiership and international players. Most of them would rather 'import' all their players, or a high proportion of them, from overseas than do as Peter Taylor is about to do at Leicester. In years gone by we had a national team to be proud of. Was it just coincidence then, in those days, that all the top clubs got the majority of their players from the lower divisions and then finished off their development?

So no-one should be surprised when we announce the sale of young players. It is the Club's strategy to do so from time to time. One day we all hope we can change that strategy. Until then I find it strange that a few of you are calling for Reg to be sacked, the Board to be sacked, the Manager to be sacked etc. If you really think that is the right thing to do then please also let us all know what alternative strategy is both feasible and workable in the short term.

Shouts that Trevor was undersold also surprise me. As recently as April this year a number of respected professionals in the game told us that we stood no chance whatsoever of selling Trevor for more than £700,000 before at least the end of 2000/01 season. What are those professionals saying now? Indeed, as Andrea will confirm, when we sold Butts earlier this year many of our fans said Trevor should have been sold and figures of £500,000 to £700,000 were suggested as a reasonable transfer expectation. Indeed I believe that Andrea ran a poll and, whilst I am not certain of this fact (perhaps Andrea could confirm?) very few of you thought he was worth over £1.25 million. I recall saying at the time that when Trevor was sold it would be for a Club record fee. I also did not mean just a few pounds over the previous Dublin record. The fact that we have achieved 50% more, with hopefully more on top of that to come, is sound business.

Once again I hope my thoughts have been interesting and the facts have helped those of you, who do not yet understand how this Club has to be run, better understand why Trevor's transfer was inevitable.

Gary Harwood.