"It's levels" ex Tottenham Academy coach drops some cold reality into the 'hunt for stars' debate

Jimmy Grievance with some rather wise words

“The academy is important because we can produce our own players. We don’t have to go and spend £20m, £30m, £40m on a player and obviously that homegrown player has an affinity with the club that a player we buy doesn’t.”

Daniel Levy

Speaking as an ex-academy coach (at Spurs), the Levy quote resonates with me. It’s why my fellow coaches and I were employed. The whole idea was/is to find players for the future of the club. That’s not easy when, at the time, 1 in 50000 would make it as a regular player in the Premier League. That figure took in the whole of the Premier League, not just Spurs, you understand.

From a personal standpoint, my assistant and I broke that mould 3 times in a decade or so. We scouted and coached several players who went on to play professionally. Specifically, though we had 3, they went on to play regularly for Spurs, with 2 also playing for England. I’m very proud of that and them. Their dedication and hard work got them the rewards they’d worked so hard for. Same with the others who didn’t play for Spurs but, like those mentioned in the blog, have gone on to succeed elsewhere both here and abroad.