ENOUGH of this doom and gloom. A new wave of bright young things and likely lads have descended upon the English game in recent years, and unbeknownst to many, three more made their Premiership debuts last weekend.
Alan Maybury, the 17 year old Home Farm product, played for Leeds United last week against Aston Villa. A fierce competitor, who has represented the Republic of Ireland at under 16 and youths levels, much is expected of the centre half cum midfielder, as was a forerunner in the Leeds team, Ian Harte.
In the same game, the languid, 6' 2" leftfooter Garrett Farrelly followed up an earlier League Cup appearance by making his Premiership debut for Villa. The 19 year old came on for Republic of Ireland captain Andy Townsend.
Another to make his Premiership debut last Saturday was the Middlesbrough 20 year old Keith O'Halloran. A product of Cherry Orchard, the right footed O'Halloran is a centre half cum midfielder who has further inflated Milesbrough's already large Irish colony.
But it's the same story pretty much everywhere. As Chris Hughton admitted a tad sheepishly during the week, the advent of seven Irish boys in the Tottenham under 21 squad in midweek (excluding the more trumpeted Andy Turner) had little to do with the ex Republic of Ireland full back. Indeed, Spurs' Irish connection is likely to pale by comparison to Blackburn's when they take on the National League under 21s in March, given Pat Devlin's connection at Ewood Park.
All told, the Irish national coach, Joe McGrath, estimates there are almost 200 recent products of the schoolboy/under age set up here under contract with English clubs - mostly Premiership. "Nor are these YTS contracts," McGrath points out. "These are proper contracts.
"The criticisms of the coaching set up here are loudest within the National League, but without wishing to have a go at them en bloc, and some clubs are now beginning to realise the importance of having under 18 sides, arguably none is doing as little in this area as our own senior clubs," McGrath said.
"I ask you, if you had a promising 16 year old kid, what would you want him to do? Languish in the reserves of a League of Ireland side for years or go to an English club? There's only one answer."
McGrath has also been operating as manager to the Republic of Ireland under 15s and under 16s for the best part of the last decade, and is a mite peeved at the general perception of the under age coaching network being light years behind the rest.
"It's become very fashionable to slag off the FAI and the under age coaching set up in this country. But this is very unfair on the great work my staff have done, people like Con Flanagan, Liam O'Brien and Maurice Price. For example, it's generally not widely known that we've qualified for six European Championship finals (at under 16 level) in the last nine years.
In 1988, they qualified for the finals in Spain; the European Olympics in Belgium in 1990 (winning a bronze medal); Cyprus in 1991; Turkey in 1993; Ireland in 1994 (as hosts they qualified automatically); and Austria this year.
The Republic's record at under 16 level in 1995 was outstanding. Unbeaten in 43 matches, they beat Holland (4-3), England (2-0), France (2-0), Israel (3-0), Belgium (2-0 and 1-1), Iceland (3-0), Norway (2-0), Austria (2-0), Wales (3-0) and Switzerland (4-0 and 3-2), as well as drawing 1-1 with Spain.
The largely false impression, of course, is generated by the performances of the under 21s and Youths side under the discredited Charlton/Setters regime. The under 21s has never been a particularly productive age group for the Republic of Ireland, winning one match out of 16 before Charlton - handed over the reins to Sellers.
Strictly on the basis of their respective won drawn lost records the Youths under Sellers do not compare all that unfavourably to the Youths under the revered Liam Tuohy. But statistics do tell a lie in this instance.
For starters, they ignore the fact that the so called Tuohy Tots qualified for three successive European finals, in Finland (1982), England (1983) and Russia (1984), as well as, of course, the FIFA World Championship finals in Tbilisi the following year.
They just missed out again in 1985-86, before Tuohy was hounded out of office by Charlton at Leeds on March 25th, 1986. Since then successive failures where alleviated by just one solitary appearance in a European finals over the last decade, Hungary in 1991, as a result of which they made the following year's World finals in Portugal.
Furthermore, Tuohy's Tots were largely comprised of home based players. The pool of talent available at Youths level, especially, and under 21 talent in the last decade has been far greater and nearly all of them English based professionals. Hence, for example, of the 18 man squad earmarked for this May's two legged play off with Iceland for a place in this year's European finals, every one of them will be based in England.
This in turn takes us back to the under 16s the steady stream of talent being produced by schoolboy clubs such as Home Farm, Belvedere, Stella Maris, Cherry Orchard, St Kevin's Boys and St Joseph's Boys, all of which is being nurtured by McGrath and his staff.
This has manifested itself increasingly in recent years through the likes of Roy Keane, Jeff Kenna, Mark Kennedy, Garry Kelly, Paul Byrne (Southend), Willie Boland (Coventry), Shane Given (the Blackburn goalkeeper who made his English league debut this season while on loan to Sunderland), Steve Carr (Spurs), Trevor Challis (QPR, who has since declared for England), Brian Leunders (Crystal Palace), Paul McCarthy (Brighton), Davey Savage (Millwall), Desk Baker (Man United), Alan Mahon (who broke into the Tranmere first team this season), as well as the aforementioned Farrelly, O'Halloran, Maybury, and Harte.
And wonder, then, that the FAI now see it is high time to employ a full time under 21 manager based in England, and that they reserve the right to give the appointment their imprimatur? Similarly with a home based under 16 and under 18 manager.
More than ever, there is plenty to work with.
