To Norwich City fans, the town of Odessa in West Texas may sound vaguely familiar: it’s entirely isolated for dozens of miles in any direction, surrounded only by perfectly flat fields, and is considered a sleepy backwater by much of the rest of the country.
And yet, much like Norwich, more than 20,000 people will appear every other week, as if from nowhere, to converge on the local football stadium.
However, fans of Odessa’s Permian Panthers* don’t turn out for a professional sports team, or even a college team, but rather their high school American football team. Week after week, the residents of Odessa stake their pride and livelihoods on a group of athletes no older than 18 years old – a phenomenon that takes place across the state of Texas but that which must be totally alien to most English football supporters.
Except Norwich’s, of course.
When City won the FA Youth Cup four and a half years ago, 21,595 supporters turned up at Carrow Road to watch the young Canaries – the second-best Youth Cup attendance this decade – with more than 3,000 following the team to Stamford Bridge. For reference, Chelsea attracted just 5,000 fans for this year’s final with Manchester City.
On Tuesday night, Norwich Under-18s kicked off this year’s Youth Cup campaign in front of approximately 250 hardy souls who braved the freezing conditions to see their team run out 4-1 winners, thanks to a hat-trick from Republic of Ireland international Adam Idah.
This is of course great for the club, whose academy is in good shape. Although both currently third-bottom, City’s U18s and U23s are still slogging it with the best teams in England in their respective leagues, the academy remains at Category 1 status, supporters are genuinely interested in the fate of the youth team, and they are now in the Fourth Round of the Youth Cup too.
But besides all this, one player (two if you include Angus Gunn, but I don’t) from Norwich’s academy – Josh Murphy – has played for Norwich in the league all season.
Perhaps it was an unreasonable expectation (and I’m not blaming the individual players at all), but I think the 21,000 fans who watched in awe as a group of 18-year-olds won Norwich their first piece of national silverware in 28 years were probably expecting a little more.
Of the starting 11, Cameron McGeehan, Harry Toffolo, Carlton Morris and the Murphy twins are still playing professional football. Of the six others, Cameron King plays for Shamrock Rovers, Harry Randall for Bishop’s Stortford, Kyle McFadden for Sligo Rovers, Ben Wyatt for Braintree, Cameron Norman for Needham Market, and goalkeeper Will Britt for Salisbury.
The club have spent millions on academy resources, the board are desperate to bring young players through (as shown by the ultimately futile appointment of Neil Adams as manager) and, worst of all, each and every season ticket holder is asked to donate £19 to help improve our youth team. So where’s the return?
Well, as it turns out, Norwich now have a whole host of players aged 21 or younger ready to take the reins. With the Premier League money about to run out, here are four reasons to remain excited about the future:
- Jamal Lewis, firstly, has just returned from a knee injury after an extremely promising pre-season, with Daniel Farke already ruling out the possibility of sending him out on loan. We could really use a decent left-back right now too, so Lewis’s astronomic rise is not only promising but really quite fortunate.
- It’s hard to believe James Maddison, while not an academy product, is only 21 – especially considering how many tricky scenarios he has heaved his side out of already this season. It will be interesting to note the level of interest for him in January but his link-up play with Alex Pritchard last Saturday seemed to get a lot of people (myself included) excited. If we can keep the two of them together for at least the next year and a half, then maybe the bright lights of the Premier League will roll back into view again soon.
- Shrewsbury remain second in League One with Ben Godfrey (who City signed from York when he was 17) and Carlton Morris still getting regular playing time. (A side note – would you take Carlton Morris back at the club right now? He’s always had a modest scoring record wherever he’s been – four so far in the league this season – but we are desperately short of options up front at the moment. Feel free to comment.) Godfrey, meanwhile, has been playing at defensive midfield rather than at right-back for the Shrews, a position at which we are woefully lacking – I’ve omitted Louis Thompson from this article because he’s been injured for so long but that is a seriously promising partnership (as long as Godfrey isn’t sold to Swansea, Southampton or West Brom, who are all reportedly interested).
- 19-year-old central midfielder Todd Cantwell, meanwhile, was shortlisted for the Premier League 2 Player of the Season Award last year, and was even part of the senior squad for City’s games with Nottingham Forest and Preston last month (Adam Phillips, also 19, a summer signing from Liverpool, was also on the bench against North End.) And finally, although slightly further back from the first team, Scotland U19s winger Glenn Middleton has played every single game in Premier League 2 with the U23s this season, despite being just 17 years old.
It’s an academy worth celebrating then. And a collection of young players tantalisingly close to understanding what so few kids outside of Odessa, Texas can – how it feels to step out on to a football pitch every other week with more than 20,000 people cheering you on.
*I haven’t plucked this team out of thin air – they are the focus of H.G. Bissinger’s book Friday Night Lights, which is a must-read if you have the faintest interest in American football.
This is a really good piece of work Jack. Love the comparison to Odessa and the stat about the youth cup attendance. There is a genuine passion for young players to come through in our fan base and subsequent levels of disappointment when they aren’t given a go. Great to see the potential coming through and I think that Godfrey and Lewis could be huge players for us in the second half of the season.
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Hi Jack
A very good read after the depressing score from Australia in the Ashes.
I can’t really see any of the 3 players at Shrewsbury coming back in January but I can see the loan changed to a 24 hour notice on recall.
I like the Odessa stats but no mention of how many progress to full time professionals or are they finding the leap to the big time just as hard as the city youth squad.
There was a saying in the 60’s and 70’s that if you could play for spurs reserves you could play for most first division sides so many made there names at other clubs due to not getting first team games.
My problem is not with the Academy set up and not producing possible first team players is the list of managers that spent millions on recruiting players that failed but didn’t have the nerve to play any of the youths, their excuse that they were always under pressure to stay up doesn’t sit well with me I would prefer we gave the youth a try rather than spend £9m on a Naismith or £3m on a Jarvis.
Mcgeehan possibly could have played in the Bradley Johnson position he proved at cambridge and luton he had the habit of scoring vital goals and is doing it for Barnsley.
Martin not the greatest scorer and to me was a younger version of CJ he up set defences and still doing it for Derby.
Is it the board that is allowing the managers to throw good money away rather than try home grown players that just might prove they have something to offer to the team.
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“There was a saying in the 60’s and 70’s that if you could play for spurs reserves you could play for most first division sides so many made there names at other clubs due to not getting first team games.”
Yes, and it’s probably still true of most of the top clubs’ reserves. But of course in those days there was only 1 substitute allowed not 7. So players like Ian Crook had to move on just to be involved on match days. I don’t think anyone has ever really clocked how much impact having at least 4 players sitting idle on the bench each week not only costs a club, but also stops their development.
As far as youth teams are concerned it’s effectively an age group. If a club has a first team squad of 25 players they will be spread across perhaps 12 years of age groups, say 21 -33. And many of those players haven’t trained in the UK anyway. So if even 2 players from any one year make it in the long run that’s probably as many as you’d expect.
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Yes true Keith but what I was trying to say about city is that in the January window with releation almost assured the club spent millions on a player that only came for the money when a couple of the best prospects could have been blooded.
It is a squad game with 25 named plus youths but city never seem to use these
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Admirable attempt to wade into the battle. To be honest, the two sides are now so entrenched that no amount of arguing and going and droning will alter anything.
The delia lovers will forgive anything of their darling, clearly preferring her presence in the directors box to anything approaching a competing outfit on the pitch.
A couple of weeks ago I was on the receiving end of an amusing rant by one such individual here, when I mentioned the clubs intention to make supporters pay for the upgrade urgently needed at the academy. I was informed that it would be a privelage to be able to donate money to the club, who, let us not forget are “self financing” and most definitely not in need of external investment.
Those of us still with some semblance of common sense will see the opportunity to give a couple of multi millionaires from Suffolk some free cash to fund their business. A job which they should be doing themselves. Only here could such a bizarre scenario not be greeted with the contempt it deserves from every single supporter.
As this season withers on the vine before Santa has filled his sack the ghost of Christmas future and uncompetitive or struggling football is all we have to look forward to,
The webberlution man tells us he needs mor transfer windows to sort out the squad. The last two transfer windows were simply an exercise in asset stripping. Still some fools bleat about the project and having patience. The next two transfer windows will bring more of the same.
This sad decline will eventually see the end of this North Korean style nightmare, probably because they run out of assets to strip and supporters in the stands to,find it.
who really buys all this family club bull? I take my family to the game, would I be less likely to do,so if I was a native of Rotherham, Birmingham, Leicester? Of course not. Too much virtue signalling and halo,polishing, the only community the club owes anything to is its own supporters
The club is a total shambles, an absolute laughing stock. As the saying goes, the fish always rots from the head, and this board stinks. How the hell can anybody defend this mess? The stupidity of the decision making, the lack of investment, the lunacy of this ridiculous Webber experiment, the public outbursts.
Look at the empty seats on show at the Sheffield game, hardly a massive vote of confidence. The lack of jingling tills and the continuous criticism of the smith regime from all sides will chip away at the boards hold on the club and hopefully hasten their demise.
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Apologies, wrong thread. Obviously a reply to the Dexit and remoaner article.
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I would like to see Lewis given a start in the side and Godfrey brought back from Shrewsbury.Other teams give youngsters a try,why can’t we?Also why hasn’t Abraham or Fonkeu been given a chance on the bench,they are probably our future strike force.
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Tony my sentiments as well on Abrahams and Fonkeu for weeks now I have asked the same question and other commentators have said how well they are playing for the u23 side then there has been the detractors saying not ready for the first team, how do we know unless they are tried.
We are in a situation of not being able to buy the finished article and in January if we buy say Hylton from Luton who is scoring quite afew this season we will get others saying league 2 player can he step up to championship level just like Raggett.
The only way to find out is to give them the opportunity to prove themselves.
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