Glory Glory Rebels

Chapter 15 Youth Team

“What are you drinking?? You are only 13.” Rudy exclaimed, the beverage in the glass looked remarkably like beer. “I thought you wanted to be a professional football player, drinking that at your age will not set you on the right path.” Rudy admonished Curtis.

Rudy felt an obligation to look after this boy, even though he was just letting him stay for a few days. He couldn’t explain why he felt that way, maybe it was his tender age, maybe it was because he knew that this kid was indeed going to have a successful career in football.

“Why didn’t you take me with you?” Curtis asked sullenly, as if he no longer cared about his career.

“Hey! In my defense, it isn’t alcoholic beer! It’s cider, it has a similar color but no alcohol content!” Griffin jumped in to defend himself.

Rudy startled at the sudden outburst from Griffin, he grabbed the glass off the counter and smelt it. There was no smell of alcohol, it reminded Rudy of apple juice.

“You were trying to trick me?” Rudy stared at Curtis.

Curtis laughed and got off the stool.

“Ha! That’s what you get for not taking me with you to see Steve Bruce. You deserve it.” And Curtis took off running.

“Actually I don’t think you have a lot to worry about, that kid is very self-disciplined. Someone tried to get him to drink a beer but he would not give in and ordered a soft drink. He had his head screwed on straight that kid.” Griffin laughed as he looked in Curtis’s direction.

Rudy nodded, he agreed with Griffin. Curtis was a sensible kid who could be trusted. Rudy looked up at Wolf, who had snuck behind the bar to make a special cocktail.

“You know, there is something about that kid. Curtis has a lot of potential, I think I want to form a youth team. What do you think Wolf?” Rudy asked.

“Look, I have to be honest with you, establishing a youth team would greatly increase our expenses. We would also have to consider who would coach them, I mean we haven’t even sorted out a coach for our main team yet. We have just started this club, I think it would be best not to rush into adding a youth team.” Wolf replied, giving his honest opinion.

Griffin nodded, he agreed with Wolf’s opinions;

“Those big professional clubs have had years if not decades to perfect their organization. They run on a massive scale, they have a complete and successful history as a club. We can barely be called a club yet, as Wolf pointed out you don’t even have a coach yet. I think if you try and establish a youth team it might be too much for you financially and you won’t succeed.” Griffin said.

Everyone knew that the biggest problem facing any new club was money, financial backing was hard to come by and new clubs often drowned in debt before they ever made it anywhere.

“Look, as far as money goes I will deal with it. I really think that we should go ahead and set up the youth as soon as possible.” Rudy said.

“This is the course of action I wish to take.” Rudy said when he saw the look of doubt on Wolf’s face. “The way I see it, we should invest in the youth training, they will be the base for the future of the club.” Rudy finished seriously.

The UEFA had made a detailed breakdown of their expectations of the clubs, for a club to progress they needed a certain percentage of youth registrations and local players. Not to mention that Rudy strongly believed in introducing a wide variety of players to the club, youths included because you never knew what someone had to offer and Rudy believed in giving people a chance.

Even some of the larger clubs had issues maintaining a youth club, Rudy thought about Real Madrid. They had a lot of fans that were unhappy with how they dealt with the youths, the training was excellent, however they did not provide the youths with many opportunities to play or substitute for the lower league team.

This caused them to lose quite a few good players, Rudy recalled Mata, after leaving Real Madrid he played for Valencia. He ended up joining the Spanish National Team to play South Africa in the World Cup in 2010. There was another incident where Abramovich had poached Arnesen to bring Chelsea an extremely effective youth training system.

FC United were in the tenth league, where all new clubs started, but Rudy was confident that it would not take them long to progress up through the leagues. The further up they went, the higher the requirements were and Rudy was thinking into the future. Forming a youth team was Rudy’s way of looking forward and setting the club up for a solid future.

“Well, it seems that you have made up your mind, but I have to insist that we get a coach first.” Wolf said, he clearly wasn’t going to sway Rudy, so he needed to give him all the support he could.

Rudy had to admit that he was a bit concerned about the situation, Bruce had initially declined his invitation and Rudy couldn’t be sure that he would accept now either.

If Rudy was going to be honest with himself, he knew that he could find a coach with little experience or reputation very easily. But Rudy wanted more than that, his expectations were high and he would not settle until he had exhausted every option.

Rudy knew that a good club was not just about the big wigs, it was about everyone as a collective. The fans were just as important as the players and the administrators. It took soul, passion, blood sweat and tears to have a club with meaning. To develop players with excellent character and a community spirit is what it was about.