Bif,
Am not sure if the Swans still have a development centre, a satellite centre running alongside what used to be the centre of excellence and at the time was based at the Phoenix Centre in Townhill.
What it used to do is take on talented kids who were not attached to the Swans or Cardiff, and who played in the local Junior Lge.
The Dev centre regularly played against the Swans CoE, often beating them. One of their kids was Jazz Richards who was released by Cardiff, wasn’t deemed good enough for the Swans at the time and linked up with the Dev centre, later becoming an apprentice with the Swans.
I have always felt that the best talent will always be signed up but there are always going to be late developers and what I have always felt is that it’s all about opportunities. Either you take them or you don’t.
I remember one instance when a 16 yr old kid was in the first team I was involved with, and Curt had him training a few nights a week at the Vetch. The kid got a bit disillusioned and stopped going to training for a few weeks and what happened is that just prior to playing Bristol City in an FA Yth cup tie, there was a couple of injuries in the Swans Yth team that would have seen the youngster given his opportunity at a top Yth level. Who knows what would have happened. All about opportunity.
Its not easy for s’body to identify talent at the age of 13/14 to put not only a scholarship offer on the table when the kid leaves school, but also a 1/2 year pro contract after his scholarship. Kids for whatever reason fail to mature to warrant a pro contract after their scholarship and usually fall by the wayside, but in the opposite case, some kids are late developers and thrive when given a pro contract.
One huge choice in recent years that goes against kids from the Juniir Lge for academy scouts is in recommending kids released by top London clubs for scholarships. I believe we have signed such a youngster this summer who was released by Arsenal but in recent years Arsenal themselves have not had a good name for rearing kids to their first team.
Bottom line Bif is getting the opportunity and taking it but sometimes the opportunity for kids comes when they least expect it!