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http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/...ke-beckham-butt-and-scholes-again-825440.html
It's long read, but it's an excellent interview!
As a player Brian McClair watched a golden generation of young Red Devils make their names. Now head of Manchester United's academy, he tells Sam Wallace why he is struggling to develop similar English talent
The business of dominating English football never stops. Which means that even if they beat Wigan tomorrow to seal their 10th Premier League title, Manchester United will ask themselves the big question: what next? Central to United's dynasty of success is the production of young footballers which, in the 50th anniversary year of the Munich air disaster, has never been quite so poignant.
It is almost 13 years since Sir Alex Ferguson put his faith in a famous generation of young players: David Beckham, Gary Neville, Paul Scholes and Nicky Butt. Ryan Giggs was already on the scene. Phil Neville was two years younger. The following May, in 1996, the unfancied kids won the title, all of them home-grown, all but one from Greater Manchester. Their success is one of the parables of the modern game and, as United contemplate another summer in the bull market of international transfers, it is a time that seems ever more to belong to a distant era.
Will United ever produce another generation like that? Will any English club? Brian McClair, head of United's academy since 2006, is probably sick of being asked the question. Behind the scenes of English football, in its most powerful clubs, the question of how young players are being developed is changing fundamentally. A whole new system – the Premier League-designed academy structure – has been in place since 1998 and it is not universally popular. When asked about the issue, Ferguson will often reply that he needs an entire press conference to answer. So here is a simple opening statement that puts it in perspective.
When McClair is asked when the next Scholes or Giggs or Beckham is coming, he answers thus. If the current academy system had been in place in the late 1980s United would not have signed Beckham, who grew up in Essex. McClair does not believe they would have signed the Nevilles either, as they would have been snapped up by Bury at an early age and a prohibitive price put upon them. Scholes, he says, would have been at Oldham Athletic's academy. Giggs would not have had the chance to leave Manchester City for the club he supported. United might have got Butt; they might not.
"It was a perfect example of why that system worked," McClair says. "United were very good at getting all the local boys and they got out-of-town boys to come on their holidays. If you look at that group of players who won the 1992 FA Youth Cup for United, nearly every single one of them played at the highest level because they were the best from Northern Ireland, they were the best from Wales, the best from England, the best from Scotland. You can't compare anything to the Beckham, Butt, Scholes generation with what happens now. It's impossible to do that now.
"In 1995, the first team was world-class, but we weren't competing at the level they are now. Maybe United didn't have that wealth, so the manager looked at the young players and said, 'Let them have a go'. There was an opportunity and sometimes you only get one chance. That summer Andrei [Kanchelskis] left, Incey [Paul Ince] left, Sparky [Mark Hughes] left and Paul Parker was dithering over a new contract. He dithered and suddenly Gary [Neville] had taken his place in the United and England team. How good were these boys? Nobody knew. We had played with them in the reserves, and they looked good enough. They took their opportunity."
Since then United have scored some successes. Wes Brown, John O'Shea and Darren Fletcher have become established squad players, if not superstars, having come through the youth teams. The Spanish centre-back Gerard Pique, acquired from Barcelona to be part of United's academy, is on the brink of the first team. Speak to those in the know and they say the 17-year-old striker Danny Welbeck, who was on the bench for the Champions League semi-final against Barcelona, has the best chance of the current crop.
The basic principle of the academy system – that clubs can only recruit boys up to the age of 11 who live within an hour's travel of their academy base – is one for which Ferguson has a long-standing antipathy. It means that the comprehensive scouting network he built up in his first decade at Old Trafford, the one that brought Beckham from Essex, was rendered virtually obsolete overnight. The arguments about academies go right to the heart of the debate about English football and where its next generation of players will come from.
It's long read, but it's an excellent interview!
As a player Brian McClair watched a golden generation of young Red Devils make their names. Now head of Manchester United's academy, he tells Sam Wallace why he is struggling to develop similar English talent
The business of dominating English football never stops. Which means that even if they beat Wigan tomorrow to seal their 10th Premier League title, Manchester United will ask themselves the big question: what next? Central to United's dynasty of success is the production of young footballers which, in the 50th anniversary year of the Munich air disaster, has never been quite so poignant.
It is almost 13 years since Sir Alex Ferguson put his faith in a famous generation of young players: David Beckham, Gary Neville, Paul Scholes and Nicky Butt. Ryan Giggs was already on the scene. Phil Neville was two years younger. The following May, in 1996, the unfancied kids won the title, all of them home-grown, all but one from Greater Manchester. Their success is one of the parables of the modern game and, as United contemplate another summer in the bull market of international transfers, it is a time that seems ever more to belong to a distant era.
Will United ever produce another generation like that? Will any English club? Brian McClair, head of United's academy since 2006, is probably sick of being asked the question. Behind the scenes of English football, in its most powerful clubs, the question of how young players are being developed is changing fundamentally. A whole new system – the Premier League-designed academy structure – has been in place since 1998 and it is not universally popular. When asked about the issue, Ferguson will often reply that he needs an entire press conference to answer. So here is a simple opening statement that puts it in perspective.
When McClair is asked when the next Scholes or Giggs or Beckham is coming, he answers thus. If the current academy system had been in place in the late 1980s United would not have signed Beckham, who grew up in Essex. McClair does not believe they would have signed the Nevilles either, as they would have been snapped up by Bury at an early age and a prohibitive price put upon them. Scholes, he says, would have been at Oldham Athletic's academy. Giggs would not have had the chance to leave Manchester City for the club he supported. United might have got Butt; they might not.
"It was a perfect example of why that system worked," McClair says. "United were very good at getting all the local boys and they got out-of-town boys to come on their holidays. If you look at that group of players who won the 1992 FA Youth Cup for United, nearly every single one of them played at the highest level because they were the best from Northern Ireland, they were the best from Wales, the best from England, the best from Scotland. You can't compare anything to the Beckham, Butt, Scholes generation with what happens now. It's impossible to do that now.
"In 1995, the first team was world-class, but we weren't competing at the level they are now. Maybe United didn't have that wealth, so the manager looked at the young players and said, 'Let them have a go'. There was an opportunity and sometimes you only get one chance. That summer Andrei [Kanchelskis] left, Incey [Paul Ince] left, Sparky [Mark Hughes] left and Paul Parker was dithering over a new contract. He dithered and suddenly Gary [Neville] had taken his place in the United and England team. How good were these boys? Nobody knew. We had played with them in the reserves, and they looked good enough. They took their opportunity."
Since then United have scored some successes. Wes Brown, John O'Shea and Darren Fletcher have become established squad players, if not superstars, having come through the youth teams. The Spanish centre-back Gerard Pique, acquired from Barcelona to be part of United's academy, is on the brink of the first team. Speak to those in the know and they say the 17-year-old striker Danny Welbeck, who was on the bench for the Champions League semi-final against Barcelona, has the best chance of the current crop.
The basic principle of the academy system – that clubs can only recruit boys up to the age of 11 who live within an hour's travel of their academy base – is one for which Ferguson has a long-standing antipathy. It means that the comprehensive scouting network he built up in his first decade at Old Trafford, the one that brought Beckham from Essex, was rendered virtually obsolete overnight. The arguments about academies go right to the heart of the debate about English football and where its next generation of players will come from.
