The Academy/Development squads watch thread 2024/25

[morganb]

Perhaps they could let the U18s themselves write the reports. Set it as homework or a college project. Reserve keeper probably attended most games but doesn't play, would give him something to do while sat on the bench.

[Hendo]

No excuse.
If the club had any sense they would be creative.
Perhaps there is someone who takes a major interest in the Academy sides, has decent knowledge, goes to lots of games....
Perhaps the club could approach them and ask them if they fancied being the SM person for the Academy games ?
I’m sure it wouldn’t be hard to put a small team of volunteers together, especially if it meant getting access to some of the closed games at Bearwood.
If you run a business on a budget you have to find ways to get stuff done....

Fair enough but maybe the club have done some research and figured there just isn't the interest to suggest a more in depth coverage is needed esp. at under 18 level. They will have plenty of data on who is reading what on their site, social media interaction and the like. They maybe just not be the numbers.

This is a good point. I wouldn't see myself as being particularly up-to-date with what is going on with academy and u-23s, but every time we have a debut, the STHs around me have no idea who the player is, and if he is ours, or has come in on loan. They usually ask me!

The main titter feed has 340,799 followers. The Academy feed has 3,374.

Man City's academy page has 52,800 followers, to provide some context.

[Stranded]

No excuse.
If the club had any sense they would be creative.
Perhaps there is someone who takes a major interest in the Academy sides, has decent knowledge, goes to lots of games....
Perhaps the club could approach them and ask them if they fancied being the SM person for the Academy games ?
I’m sure it wouldn’t be hard to put a small team of volunteers together, especially if it meant getting access to some of the closed games at Bearwood.
If you run a business on a budget you have to find ways to get stuff done....

Fair enough but maybe the club have done some research and figured there just isn't the interest to suggest a more in depth coverage is needed esp. at under 18 level. They will have plenty of data on who is reading what on their site, social media interaction and the like. They maybe just not be the numbers.

Volunteers will work to a degree but you will still need someone to manage them plus a lot of youth games are the morning of first team games. The pool of people who would volunteer would be dedicated fans who are also very unlikely to choose missing a first team game to go and send a few tweets.

I would think that there is less interest in the U18’s than the U 23’s. However to not cover the semi on Saturday at all - preview, twitter live coverage and report is appalling- have they only 1 person employed who would have been rightfully in Sheffield to cover the 1st team.
There is interest in the academy, and after all we are Cat 1 - attendances are reasonable when matches are played at the Madekski stadium, less at Wycombe.

In your opinion. We are on this site because we are already pretty avid fans - yet the academy page is only 253 pages long and it started 7 years ago. Quick comparison - Rival Watch - where we aren't even speaking about our club is at 242 pages and started in 2017. In the last 20 or so pages probably 50% are you either posting the result or whinging that the club haven't.

That hardly screams that we have a fan base who have much more than a passing interest in Academy fixtures - we can probably name some of the top prospects but I can honestly say I couldn't give a toss that the u18s lost to Man City at the weekend because at that level of football the result is not important - I really couldn't be bothered to read a report on it especially one written by a fan with too much time on their hands. Same if we'd won - it's nice if the team is doing well but all I really care about is that there is a pathway for players to make the first team if they are good enough. I'm sure I'm not alone on that on here and definitely won't be in the wider fan base.

We get the level of focus on the academy games that are needed for our fan base i.e. minimal with a bit more on the games fans can actually attend - it feels right to me and isn't an area of major concern.

[Royals and Racers]

Academy twitter has woken up after a long sleep to remind everyone that it’s free entry in to the U23’s match against Middlesborough tonight at the Madejski stadium KO 7pm.

[Snowflake Royal]

How to cover an U 18 semi-final match- lesson 1 from Man City https://www.mancity.com/news/academy/ma ... nal-15-feb

It's almost like Citeh have got more resources available to cover such things than we do.

No excuse.
If the club had any sense they would be creative.
Perhaps there is someone who takes a major interest in the Academy sides, has decent knowledge, goes to lots of games....
Perhaps the club could approach them and ask them if they fancied being the SM person for the Academy games ?
I’m sure it wouldn’t be hard to put a small team of volunteers together, especially if it meant getting access to some of the closed games at Bearwood.
If you run a business on a budget you have to find ways to get stuff done....

Well the only one who seems to give a toss here has said he has no interest in doing anything to help.

[Snowflake Royal]

Fair enough but maybe the club have done some research and figured there just isn't the interest to suggest a more in depth coverage is needed esp. at under 18 level. They will have plenty of data on who is reading what on their site, social media interaction and the like. They maybe just not be the numbers.

Volunteers will work to a degree but you will still need someone to manage them plus a lot of youth games are the morning of first team games. The pool of people who would volunteer would be dedicated fans who are also very unlikely to choose missing a first team game to go and send a few tweets.

I would think that there is less interest in the U18’s than the U 23’s. However to not cover the semi on Saturday at all - preview, twitter live coverage and report is appalling- have they only 1 person employed who would have been rightfully in Sheffield to cover the 1st team.
There is interest in the academy, and after all we are Cat 1 - attendances are reasonable when matches are played at the Madekski stadium, less at Wycombe.

In your opinion. We are on this site because we are already pretty avid fans - yet the academy page is only 253 pages long and it started 7 years ago. Quick comparison - Rival Watch - where we aren't even speaking about our club is at 242 pages and started in 2017. In the last 20 or so pages probably 50% are you either posting the result or whinging that the club haven't.

That hardly screams that we have a fan base who have much more than a passing interest in Academy fixtures - we can probably name some of the top prospects but I can honestly say I couldn't give a toss that the u18s lost to Man City at the weekend because at that level of football the result is not important - I really couldn't be bothered to read a report on it especially one written by a fan with too much time on their hands. Same if we'd won - it's nice if the team is doing well but all I really care about is that there is a pathway for players to make the first team if they are good enough. I'm sure I'm not alone on that on here and definitely won't be in the wider fan base.

We get the level of focus on the academy games that are needed for our fan base i.e. minimal with a bit more on the games fans can actually attend - it feels right to me and isn't an area of major concern.

Right on.

[Royals and Racers]

Yes i’m wrong the coverage of the academy is brilliant.
1 RFC website - no preview of tonights match at all
2 Reading Fc academy twitter have mentioned it today but many people i would suggest won’t know the game is on because i’s not on the website
3 still no mention anywhere of last Saturday’s semi for the U 18’s.
Some of you are more than happy to slag off the players but won’t accept the coverage of the academy is cr*p !!!!!!

[Stranded]

Yes i’m wrong the coverage of the academy is brilliant.
1 RFC website - no preview of tonights match at all
2 Reading Fc academy twitter have mentioned it today but many people i would suggest won’t know the game is on because i’s not on the website
3 still no mention anywhere of last Saturday’s semi for the U 18’s.
Some of you are more than happy to slag off the players but won’t accept the coverage of the academy is cr*p !!!!!!

It is crap because no-one really cares about the games (at least not enough on a regular basis). If they did it wouldn't be crap.

If the club can see there is a big need to improve academy coverage they will. At the moment, it really doesn't appear that there is.

[Stranded]

Yes i’m wrong the coverage of the academy is brilliant.
1 RFC website - no preview of tonights match at all
2 Reading Fc academy twitter have mentioned it today but many people i would suggest won’t know the game is on because i’s not on the website
3 still no mention anywhere of last Saturday’s semi for the U 18’s.
Some of you are more than happy to slag off the players but won’t accept the coverage of the academy is cr*p !!!!!!

BTW 30 second look on the website and I found a live feed for the game

https://www.readingfc.co.uk/news/2020/f ... rough-u23/

[URZZZZ]

Yes i’m wrong the coverage of the academy is brilliant.
1 RFC website - no preview of tonights match at all
2 Reading Fc academy twitter have mentioned it today but many people i would suggest won’t know the game is on because i’s not on the website
3 still no mention anywhere of last Saturday’s semi for the U 18’s.
Some of you are more than happy to slag off the players but won’t accept the coverage of the academy is cr*p !!!!!!

It is crap because no-one really cares about the games (at least not enough on a regular basis). If they did it wouldn't be crap.

If the club can see there is a big need to improve academy coverage they will. At the moment, it really doesn't appear that there is.

This really

It’s always good to see how the academy is faring and the players development but it’s not really a massive area of concern

[Royals and Racers]

Andresson
Elva- Fountaine
Medford- Smith
East
Nditi
Beeden
McCleary
Coleman
Loader
Aluko
Caetano
Subs
Driscoll
Watson
Azeez
Osorio
McGiff

[Royals and Racers]

0-1 50 mins

[Sutekh]

FT Lost 1-0

[Royals and Racers]

FT Lost 1-0

There must have been around 25 outfield players on the pitch altogether tonight and Aluko was undoubtedly the worst of those !!!! He had an absolute mare !!!!

[morganb]

Match report for last night's game was up in a timely fashion:

https://www.readingfc.co.uk/news/2020/f ... -madejski/

[Sutekh]

Joseph Ajose and Imari Samuels have signed their first pro contracts

[Royals and Racers]

Could one of the experts on here who are adamant that the club don`t cover the academy in full because there is no interest in the academy from the fans(or enough of the fans) explain why the club are always very quick to tell us of a contract signing- maybe these experts know that it`s only when they play that we are not interested !!

[Stranded]

Could one of the experts on here who are adamant that the club don`t cover the academy in full because there is no interest in the academy from the fans(or enough of the fans) explain why the club are always very quick to tell us of a contract signing- maybe these experts know that it`s only when they play that we are not interested !!

Err because when they sign a professional contract it means they are on the pathway to the first team i.e. the club think they have a future with us as a professional and could reach the first team in the next couple of years.

My view, as I have been quite clear on is that fans (or enough) are interested in a pathway to the first team so signing of contracts is newsworthy and should be reported on, a report on a 4-0 defeat to Stoke isn't something that will pique big enough interest.

Hope that clarifies.

Though if you really, really want to read the reports of all the academy games (bar 2), you can find them here: https://www.readingfc.co.uk/matches/under-23-fixtures/ - it's really not difficult to find them if you are interested enough.

[Royals and Racers]

Could one of the experts on here who are adamant that the club don`t cover the academy in full because there is no interest in the academy from the fans(or enough of the fans) explain why the club are always very quick to tell us of a contract signing- maybe these experts know that it`s only when they play that we are not interested !!

Err because when they sign a professional contract it means they are on the pathway to the first team i.e. the club think they have a future with us as a professional and could reach the first team in the next couple of years.

My view, as I have been quite clear on is that fans (or enough) are interested in a pathway to the first team so signing of contracts is newsworthy and should be reported on, a report on a 4-0 defeat to Stoke isn't something that will pique big enough interest.

Hope that clarifies.

Though if you really, really want to read the reports of all the academy games (bar 2), you can find them here: https://www.readingfc.co.uk/matches/under-23-fixtures/ - it's really not difficult to find them if you are interested enough.

So what happened to the bar 2 ?? Most of the reports are posted around 4/5 days after the fixtures- brilliant !!!
I did find something out last evening at the match and that is someone is employed to cover the RFC Womens team- that is why the coverage is excellent, Previews, live twitter and prompt match reports. What i didn`t find out is how many are employed on the 1st team/Academy.

[Snowflake Royal]

You are literally the only one who cares. No one else gives a shit about instant support to the standard of the first team for U8
18/23 games.

Give it a oxf*rd rest, you're bitching to yourself and the rest of us are fed up clicking on the thread for a useful update only to see you pissing and moaning about nothing for the 8 millionth time.