McDonald loan to finish/AGM News

Replacement?
By Albatross
December 15 2005

The bad news from Ipswich Town is that Hartlepool United will not be able to keep hold of Dean McDonald when his initial month's loan expires after the Walsall game. Meanwhile, the club's AGM has revealed Ken Hodcroft's frustrations with the authorities - particularly over youth development funding.

Just as McDonald seemed to be settling in and filling the hole left by Boyd and Porter, he now is set to head back to East Anglia after Saturday's game at Walsall. It's something of a blow, and although Ipswich boss Joe Royle stated when he first came to Pools that the intention was for the loan to be short-term, hopes we raised that we might at least be able to keep him for another month after he was allowed to play in the FA Cup.

In some ways this couldn't come at a worse time. Pools can't make any more signings - loan or otherwise - from other clubs until January 1st, by which time we will have already had most of the intensive Christmas programme; and with Boyd and Porter unlikely to be ready for the first team for a few weeks yet, and James Brown still recovering from the major surgery on his knee, we are going to miss Dean. Eifion Williams may come back in - apparently the foot injury that kept him out last weekend wasn't a broken toe and he is expected to be available.

Meanwhile the statement to the AGM from Ken Hodcroft is now on the Official Website, and reveals that Pools made a loss of about £180,000 last year, all of which is being funded by IOR. I'm not too concerned by the figure, but what does concern me is something that obviously also concerns Hodcroft: the Youth Team. It seems that at the time of writing, the central grant that helps keep the Centre of Excellence going is under threat - it's already been reduced, and as yet no announcement has been forthcoming about whether it will be continued.

Hodcroft, not unreasonably, wants to see the money guaranteed for some time to come (the agreement runs out in 2006/7) as otherwise some hard decisions will have to be made. With the grant currently paying for about £130K of the costs, there's either a big chunk of money to be found from somewhere or a dramatic reduction in the youth system, neither of which is exactly palatable to club or fans.

Ken knows the value of the youth system - that's clear from the statement - and wants to preserve it, but the Football Authorities are dithering and the PFA is simply not interested any more. It seems to me that for the powers that be to pull the plug would be immensely short-sighted. Maybe we don't see as many players from the lower divisions come through to the very top now - but it does still happen; and when you look at how many players have made it to the first team from our own setup it makes you wonder what will happen to the game as a whole if the development of young talent is limited to those clubs that can afford to fund an academy or centre of excellence. Maybe there would be short-term savings, but longer term where will the next generation of professional players come from?

Sadly, the FA and FL (and the PFA) don't seem to want to answer that question, and sometimes it seems that they'd prefer it if we all went away and left them with just the top two divisions. It would certainly make life harder for clubs like Pools, and has the potential to widen the gap still further between the haves and have nots in pro football. I can see the issue of "Farm Clubs" raising it's ugly head again in the very near future - something that no fan of a smaller club wants. Let's hope that it doesn't have to come to that.