As rumours on an unoffical Spurs site suggests that John Bostock now regrets his move from Palace – the team he had supported whilst growing up – I’ll have a look at the growing trend of people leaving the so called “smaller teams” very early on in their careers, in the hope that they can make it in the big divisions.
Don’t get me wrong, for some people this does work. Take Gareth Barry – who joined Villa aged just 16 from Brighton. Now i’m not even going to bother talking about the “packet of crisps”, teams recieve in compensation for players like Barry, and Bostock as that could be another essay entirely, but i still do think it’s remarkably unfair that we only get £700,000 upfront for Bostock, whilst Ronaldo is being sold for £80 million, it’s crazy. Back to Barry, and quite clearly it’s worked for him – he’s made it at the higher level, and has done extremely well for himself. However, the general trend is that the players who do move on to higher league clubs too quickly don’t fulfil their talent, and i’ll look at two very clear examples of that here.
Firstly, Bostock the boy who in November 2007 declared “It was my dream to play for Palace and to make my debut. I’ve always played for this club so if i’m playing here, I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. Yet in July 2008 he signed for Tottenham. Why? Well many people would say the money, but I don’t think that’s particularly accurate. Yes he’ll be on significantly higher wages, but I think often when this sort of situation occurs, people are far too quick to make judgements about money – when there are, in my opinion, two far more important reasons. Firstly, he saw it as a chance to get to a big club quickly – and he would have been extremely impressed with the training facilities, the coaching staff, and generally every aspect of the club – which is far far better in comparison to Palace. The 2nd reason is the ego he has – supposedly a “devout christian”, he does seem to think the world of himself, and having seen him play on a couple of occasions he certainly isn’t frightened of show boating. So he would have believed he can make it, and even if he is slightly regretting the move, he probably still believes he can do it. That’s where the real problem lies – not the money, as that would have been his father/agents reason more than his. Every young player things they’re going to be the exception – they are going to be the one that makes it. And yes this a good thing, in that everyone is motivated to try and succeed – but the law of averages state that not everyone can be an exception to the rule. Bostock might still make it, but the chances are if he had stayed at Palace he would have been a first team regular by now, and would have had a far better chance of getting into Spurs first team for next season had the transfer been this summer instead. He’s just one example of many young players who don’t realise that they have time on their side – he could have easily stayed another season at Palace – but he didn’t, because of this mentality that everything has to happen immediatley.
The second example is Wayne Routledge, who again left Palace for Tottenham – joining them as a 20 year old in 2005. Now he’s playing for QPR in the championship, despite having been labelled “the next big thing”, and tipped for an England call up during his time with Palace. But why did he move? In short, probably this time it is the money – at 20, he would have been getting far more money than say Bostock at 15, so that was almost certainly a motivation. But again it’s this burning desire to try and test yourself against the best – he could have stayed at Palace, and really improved, as it was quite clear when he was with us that he was still a raw talent even though he had reached 20. If he had stayed with us for even a year longer, he would have done far more than he has done in his career to date , and at 24 you have to wonder if he’s ever going to reach his full potential.
Of course when a big club comes calling, it’s very hard to say no for any player whatever age. But surely it’s more sensible to fully prove yourself at the smaller clubs first rather than moving on before you’ve done anything. Consdier Theo Walcott, he signed a contract with Southampton and played a few games for them – it wasn’t a long spell he had in the first team, but it still give him experience, and meant he was more likely to get into the first team.
Another fairly general reason why people are happy to move on so quickly is because of the ridiculous loan transfer system. A club like Man United or Tottenham can easily have 10 – 20 players out on loan at any one time, and players know that if they can’t get in the first team, they can simply go out on loan – thus meaning it’s far less of a risk to their careers. Of course it ruins their careers in many cases, but they still view it as less risky. However, once more, this is an essay for a different time.
I’ll finish with a quote from Simon Jordan, who was giving John Bostock a reason as to why he shouldn’t leave Palace for Tottenham. “when Spurs came knocking I told Wayne to stay and learn his trade at Palace. But he went, he grabbed the money and now he’s at Villa not getting in the first team, just like he didn’t get in the Spurs team, just like he didn’t get in the Portsmouth team and just like he didn’t get in the Fulham team.
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