“When I was released by Millwall and then Crystal Palace as a teenager in the late 70s my whole world shattered.”Īnd Townsend got pretty close: he scored on his Millwall debut and lined up alongside Teddy Sheringham, but when football was taken away he says he “felt empty” and like “a failure”, adding it is “a feeling I admit I carry with me to this day”. “I was a forward, a captain, a leader of my youth teams, I was told and truly believed I was destined for the top of the game,” he says. What’s next? Will scouts start lurking in post-natal maternity wards trying to spot signs of unusually strong thighs or a sharpness in the reactions of newborn babies? Will the Bounty reps who already ambush exhausted new mothers soon be joined by a coach from your nearest top-flight club handing over a business card and recommending they get in touch if their baby shows early signs of promise with a football?Īshley Cole: ‘Mental health wasn’t a thing when I played – I probably did struggle but didn’t recognise it’ Last year, clubs had discussed introducing a minimum age for children to be involved with academies, or “pre-academies”, as it’s been dubbed, which is really just “academies”. Professional clubs are forbidden from registering players until Under 9 level - signing eight-year-olds already feels a bit wrong. Surely nobody can really believe that Premier League clubs pursuing nursery school children is anything but… well, totally weird, right? Arsenal are playing like Jekyll and Hyde but Partey and Tavares showed their best face against Aston Villa
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