Fourmidable - Roach hails 'monumental' year for youth

It was always going to be a long term effort for Joe Roach and everyone involved with the Centre of Excellence at AFC Bournemouth.

Starting from scratch in the summer of 2001, the youth team made steady progress in its first few years. Despite calls in some quarters to scrap the system a second time, Roach defied the critics and continued to develop the youth team programme at AFC Bournemouth.

By 2004 Roach had established a strong link with Brockenhurst College, a unique education opportunity and a youth system to begin rivalling the likes of Southampton and Portsmouth. The Hampshire Club's extensive resource enabled them to cream the top local players, but around the same time the Bournemouth engine started producing professional players.

The likes of Kevin Scriven, Fawzi Saadi, James Coutts, James Rowe, Curtis Allen and Brett Pitman all turned professional from the Cherries youth team giving a clear indication Roach and his team were moving in the right direction.

This year's group has excelled beyond any other with four second year players set to become professional football players. Sam Vokes signed pro terms in his first year and that was yesterday added to with news of Ryan Pryce, Josh McQuoid and Joe Partington being offered terms.

The impact on the first team this season doubled with yesterday's news is testament to the investment in youth made by Jeff Mostyn and Steve Sly last August.

Roach has delivered in style and although delighted, continues to keep his feet on the ground. It's a trait that allows the youth system to make realistic progress based on constraints that are still in place.

In assessing the current state of the youth team Roach said, "It's been monumental in terms of elevation progression. With every success story comes the lads who didn't make their goals. We've had a meeting with them all and we'll support them. We'll send their info around the clubs and help them best we can

"If you get one out of a group that's a good thing so to get four is tremendous. But we've still got to be realistic in terms of expectations as no two years are the same. Given we aren't able to recruit players it's even more astounding that we've had this level of success from four players who are all fairly local."

Although Portsmouth and Southampton still recruit the majority of the regions better players Roach believes Bournemouth are closing the gap thanks to the commitment made to youth by the Board last summer.

Joe added, "Our Centre of excellence continues to make progress and people need to remember it's a development programme and whether it's the players involved of the programme itself, it needs time to develop. Jeff Mostyn and Steve Sly have allowed us time to put a structure and development blocks in place to enable us to do this.

"You've got a lot of things to consider. Needs for local club managers and players to see opportunity that is here and build up relationships and trust with people. You've got to build up the system to make it a viable option for players to come here. That takes time and we're bearing the fruit of that."