Boro appoint new Youth Coach
Posted by sgmboro on 27/07/2008
With a lot of talk over the last few weeks about what is happening with Stevenage Borough’s youth system and the EFCO, Phil Wallace has announced that Colin Read, formerly of Tottenham and West Ham has been appointed as Youth Manager. Read spent some time at the club last season as reserve team manager. The club have been looking for someone to manage the youth side since Darren Sarll left the club to join Brentford and with the appointment of Read, Boro look to have got a good experienced coach in to take the academy further. Steve Greaves, who was an academy assistant at Ipswich, can also help Boro as Phil Wallace plans for the future.
Wallace obviously wants to completely transform the youth system at the club as it is just not developing players good enough to play for the club.
“What I’d like to see is a select group of six players aged 18-19 years old that we give full contracts to each year, in addition to anyone that may excel in the EFCO scheme. These players will probably have been rejected by Football League and/or Championship clubs, just as George Boyd was, or come from our own School of Excellence and be the best talent that we can find. Possibly even from overseas. We will contract these six as full time pros, provide digs and see how they do with a year of intensive full-time training alongside the first team squad.”
It’s interesting how this summer seems to have seen a lot of change with regards to the coaching set up and youth academy. When Peter Taylor left he said he had given the chairman a few pointers where he felt the club could improve upon.
“As for the club itself, the support is good and the training facilities are okay. There were one or two things I said to Phil about which need improving.”
It certainly looks like Wallace has taken them points on board as he looks to try and get Stevenage into the football league. The coaching set up is arguably the strongest it has ever been. I can’t remember having 5 different coaches as well as a separate youth coach ever before. The playing squad is also, again, big compared to other clubs in the division. At the moment we have potentially 9 players who can play up front! It also makes you wonder if Westley has come in not just as manager, but also to help finance the club as well?
Anonymous said
Very brave coming from someone who is anonymous and hiding behind a computer screen!
Sad!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Anonymous said
Sorry but who was that aimed at? I posted that I had heard that Colin had been suspended by the FA. That was not meant to be malicious, but I think you will find it is true, just ask any coach you know who is involved with the FA.
My mate was doing his UEFA ‘B’ course last week and it was the main topic of conversation.
Results said
This seasons results between the two sides.
Stevenage EFCO 0 1 Stevenage Boro FC
Stevenage Boro 2 2 Stevenage EFCO
League Cup Final- Stevenage EFCO 1 0 STEVENAGE BORO FC
Results said
Sorry meant for 4-0 to Stevenage Boro FC for the first game not 1-0.
Anonymous said
It says on the main website that the juniors have been released. Well at least they now know because unfortunately nobody has had the courtesy to tell these boys face to face that they are no longer required. Having been at other clubs at least when you are released you are spoken to and given reasons as to why.The boys have been treated poorly with no communication from Stevenage unless they were wanted for something eg Reserve fixtures. I know this for a fact as I am related to one of the players. Unfortunately for all of the boys concerned at the start of the season a good team of players which had been formed under Darren Sarll were split to the benfit of none of the players. The chairman said at the start of the season he would be looking to take some of these boys on-another comment which proved not to be true. Most of these boys feel that they have been used this season to fufil fixtures and now the simple fact that not 1 player has been kept on would seem to prove this statement correct which is unfortunate for those boys and parents who gave up a lot of time and were committed to getting their boys to and from fixtures and training. There were 2 or 3 boys who Im sure most parents and Colin would agree were of a good enough level to have been considered. The chairman began to attend matches towards the end of the season but we never saw the first team manager-how does this work? Even premiership managers would spend some time looking at their youth players but sadly for these boys this never happened. Well done to all of those boys who represented Stevenage and good luck in your future footballing career-I am sure some of you will be picked up and be able to play at a decent level where you will be appreciated.
Paul said
Totally agree. Darren Sarll, Robbie O’Keefe and David Bass and the rest of the coaches at AVC have produced so many good players over the last four years yet not one has broken through to our first team. Scott Balderson is an Australia U21 international and is now playing in the A-League in Australia, yet we released him earlier this year without him even getting a chance. Brinkman has been training with Brentford yet we released him. Mcdevitt was a good young centre back but we released him.
There were players who were more than good enough at AVC and also our new school of excellence yet we couldn’t even give one a chance. Our club is either not interested in bringing through young players or just simply do not not know how too.
FC Boro- I would like to right an article on this situation and if deemed good enough by yourself it be published on the site.
sgmboro said
Re – Paul
That would be great of you could right an article regarding the EFCO situation. I’m always open to viewers of the site to get involved and comment. All you have to do is get your article in a word doc and send it over to my email address which is sgmboro@hotmail.co.uk. Thanks