Ipswich's State of the Game (Part 1)

By Simon (IpswichFanGoneNuts)
March 9 2009

Last year, Sky Sports News took a close look at all aspects of grassroots football in this country. State Of The Game focussed on different areas of the national game, such as youth football, women's football, the future of the 11-a-side game and behaviour, from players, officials and supporters - and steps being taken to improve it. This little creation of theirs that I based on this is all about the State of the Game at Ipswich. This is the first edition and our Topic is: Does more need to be done to improve the development of young players in ITFC?

Two English teams went head to head in the Champions League final as Manchester United and Chelsea clash in Moscow.

But some people would argue the first all-English Champions League final in history cannot be described as a triumph for English football, given that the success of both teams has been built by using a number of foreign imports, and I agree.

However at Ipswich what seems to have happened before we were taken over by Marcus “I don't really exist” Evans, is that we brought players over from places like Eire and Northern Ireland and trained them up at our academies. Now I thought the idea of an Football club's academy was local players being nurtured. However this hasn't seemed to have happened. I know players from the academy and they go to the same school as me, while there being cared for, and there very good, there chances of getting a contract are limited as they have a life here not like those brought over.

Now consider this picture (which is happening at Ipswich but I will take it away from us):

Lets look at the spotlight on funding and look at the case of Wrexham's centre of excellence which is set to lose 50 per cent of its funding - around £100,000 - because of the club's relegation from the Football League.

Children of primary school age can only sign up to clubs within an hour's drive away so if the centre does fold then it could have drastic consequences because there would not be an academy available to large numbers of children in Wales, however with Ipswich that doesn't seem to have mattered.

Ipswich Town are losing funding as well – due to cut backs thanks to a certain manager's big spend, and this will most likely see things get worse.

What do you think they should do?