Premiership predators fail to play by rules in battle for stars of the future
By Matthew James
HE HAS a goalscoring record to rival Michael Owen. Top clubs would love to sign him and will seemingly stop at nothing to get their man — yet the “man” is a boy just leaving primary school. Welcome to the dog-eat-dog world of youth football.
Steven Brinkhurst is 11, a talented athlete who enjoys table tennis, PlayStation games and listening to rock music. He is also a prolific striker at Brighton & Hove Albion’s Centre of Excellence, potentially a prize capture for other clubs after 25 hat-tricks and more than 160 goals in the last year of club and schools football.
Steven’s known admirers include Leeds United, Chelsea, Tottenham Hotspur and West Ham United from the Premiership; Millwall, Wimbledon and Crystal Palace from the Nationwide League. They are not forming an orderly queue for a boy who has struck 350 goals in four seasons, most for Sunday junior side Lewes Bridgeview.
Football rules prevent scouts from watching Academy or Centre of Excellence matches up to and including under-16s. They can watch representative matches, such as county or district fixtures, but are not allowed to approach a boy or his parents if the player is associated with a league club.
Steven is too young to appear for Sussex Schools, attends school outside the area of the Brighton Boys’ representative team and has stopped playing for Bridgeview as his Albion matches switch from Saturdays to Sundays this season.
However, that is unlikely to stop the scouts. While some abide by the regulations, others repeatedly target boys who, like Steven, have already signed schoolboy forms for a league club. Brighton’s hopes of fighting off the competition have been boosted by their promotion to the first division but Steven’s parents say that has not deterred other clubs from approaching them and, in at least one case, Steven himself.
“Steven answered the phone once and a scout from one of the London clubs just started asking him all sorts of questions,” Paul, his father, said. “We were very annoyed that someone was speaking to him direct at home. One club got a friend of mine to ring up so they wouldn’t be making a direct approach. Another club rang my parents, asking where Steven would be playing during the summer.
“They keep saying things like ‘these are Academy coaches and he’ll be playing against bigger clubs’. That’s assuming Academies are better than Centres of Excellence, but we are very happy with the coaching Steven is getting. We’re fully committed to Brighton.”
Angela, Steven’s mother, said: “There are so many things going on in adolescence and they don’t need all the extra pressure. We don’t want to take his childhood away. He’s very happy where he is and if a kid’s happy he’ll play well. Paul and I are very strong, but other parents with talented children may have no idea how to handle something like this.”
At least two London clubs are known to target young players who have single parents, presumably because they believe the parent is more susceptible to gifts and promises.
Some clubs are also believed to accept false addresses for young players to get around restrictions on travelling time to training. Clubs are compensated for players they lose, but the Brinkhursts argue that the figures involved are too often “peanuts”. Brighton eventually received about £1 million for Gareth Barry and Michael Standing, who joined Aston Villa together in 1997 after six years at Brighton’s Centre of Excellence.
Dick Knight, the Brighton chairman, had to fight hard before Villa paid up — and for every such headline-grabbing award there are many others which amount to a few minutes’ takings in a Premiership club’s superstore.
Raiding the Nationwide League youth pond is an almost risk-free business for the big fish. If they acquire 10 or 20 players from other clubs at the age of 10 or 12, they only need one success to make it pay several times over.
The Premier League, Football League, FA and Professional Footballers’ Association all declined to comment, but Sussex-born Steven had a clear response when asked about his ambitions. “It would be amazing to play for the Brighton first team,” he said.
That ought to tell the scouts something, but the Brinkhursts’ experience suggests it will fall on deaf ears.
By Matthew James
HE HAS a goalscoring record to rival Michael Owen. Top clubs would love to sign him and will seemingly stop at nothing to get their man — yet the “man” is a boy just leaving primary school. Welcome to the dog-eat-dog world of youth football.
Steven Brinkhurst is 11, a talented athlete who enjoys table tennis, PlayStation games and listening to rock music. He is also a prolific striker at Brighton & Hove Albion’s Centre of Excellence, potentially a prize capture for other clubs after 25 hat-tricks and more than 160 goals in the last year of club and schools football.
Steven’s known admirers include Leeds United, Chelsea, Tottenham Hotspur and West Ham United from the Premiership; Millwall, Wimbledon and Crystal Palace from the Nationwide League. They are not forming an orderly queue for a boy who has struck 350 goals in four seasons, most for Sunday junior side Lewes Bridgeview.
Football rules prevent scouts from watching Academy or Centre of Excellence matches up to and including under-16s. They can watch representative matches, such as county or district fixtures, but are not allowed to approach a boy or his parents if the player is associated with a league club.
Steven is too young to appear for Sussex Schools, attends school outside the area of the Brighton Boys’ representative team and has stopped playing for Bridgeview as his Albion matches switch from Saturdays to Sundays this season.
However, that is unlikely to stop the scouts. While some abide by the regulations, others repeatedly target boys who, like Steven, have already signed schoolboy forms for a league club. Brighton’s hopes of fighting off the competition have been boosted by their promotion to the first division but Steven’s parents say that has not deterred other clubs from approaching them and, in at least one case, Steven himself.
“Steven answered the phone once and a scout from one of the London clubs just started asking him all sorts of questions,” Paul, his father, said. “We were very annoyed that someone was speaking to him direct at home. One club got a friend of mine to ring up so they wouldn’t be making a direct approach. Another club rang my parents, asking where Steven would be playing during the summer.
“They keep saying things like ‘these are Academy coaches and he’ll be playing against bigger clubs’. That’s assuming Academies are better than Centres of Excellence, but we are very happy with the coaching Steven is getting. We’re fully committed to Brighton.”
Angela, Steven’s mother, said: “There are so many things going on in adolescence and they don’t need all the extra pressure. We don’t want to take his childhood away. He’s very happy where he is and if a kid’s happy he’ll play well. Paul and I are very strong, but other parents with talented children may have no idea how to handle something like this.”
At least two London clubs are known to target young players who have single parents, presumably because they believe the parent is more susceptible to gifts and promises.
Some clubs are also believed to accept false addresses for young players to get around restrictions on travelling time to training. Clubs are compensated for players they lose, but the Brinkhursts argue that the figures involved are too often “peanuts”. Brighton eventually received about £1 million for Gareth Barry and Michael Standing, who joined Aston Villa together in 1997 after six years at Brighton’s Centre of Excellence.
Dick Knight, the Brighton chairman, had to fight hard before Villa paid up — and for every such headline-grabbing award there are many others which amount to a few minutes’ takings in a Premiership club’s superstore.
Raiding the Nationwide League youth pond is an almost risk-free business for the big fish. If they acquire 10 or 20 players from other clubs at the age of 10 or 12, they only need one success to make it pay several times over.
The Premier League, Football League, FA and Professional Footballers’ Association all declined to comment, but Sussex-born Steven had a clear response when asked about his ambitions. “It would be amazing to play for the Brighton first team,” he said.
That ought to tell the scouts something, but the Brinkhursts’ experience suggests it will fall on deaf ears.
