The Unlikely Overachievers by the Thames

Fulham are an odd club. They’re very much different to their rivals. This isn’t to sound disparaging or condescending, but they’re what many would refer to as a ‘nice club’. Call something ‘nice’ and it can be took up in many ways.

They’re certainly a unique club. When they were promoted last they were the first club to have a neutral section in their ground as to maximise on the tourists in London who’d struggle to get tickets for one of the other clubs in the city. Sitting by The Thames, Fulham has a certain picturesque quality to it.

No doubting Fulham are a small club, though, in compared to Premier League terms near them in London such as Chelsea, with their home ground Craven Cottage having a maximum capacity of 25,700, quite small compared to other London clubs such as West Ham or Chelsea. While Fulham are now in the Championship their achievements of staying in The Premier League for such a long time shouldn’t be understated.

What also shouldn’t also be understated though, is the sublime development in their academy in recent years under the inspired tutelage of Huw Jennings, the club’s academy director. Jennings joined the club in December 2008 along with Steve Wigley in 2012 as Under 18 Manager and Malcolm Elias in 2009 as Head of Talent Identification from the much lauded youth set up at Southampton.

This success isn’t a one off either, Fulham have won three successive Under 18 titles in recent years. The clamour for their successful youth to be implemented into an ageing squad cannot be denied. Jennings though, is cautious about putting players into the lime light too soon.

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‘‘You can’t force it,’’ he says. ‘‘There’s got to be the right stepping stones. If we take Dan Burn, who’s played two games for the first team, his stepping stone started at Darlington, where we identified his potential. We then developed him in our way, then he plays for Yeovil in League One. Then he goes to Birmingham, a club that’s a bit bigger. Now he’s back at Fulham for a few games. It’s fascinating to see the way he’s progressed. At club level people want players in a team before they’re ready for it.

‘‘If I reflect back on the period with Kerim Frei, he got into the team a bit early as a 17-year-old and instantly the crowd took to him because he’s a dribbler and he’s exciting to watch. But things didn’t go as well for Kerim as people hoped and, reflecting back, we forced him into the team a bit too early. As a result he missed out on some of those steps,’’ Jennings explained in his interview with The Guardian in February.

Fulham may not have a great history of implementing academy graduates into their senior side, but Jennings and his backroom staff of Wigley and Elias certainly do. Indeed, in their time at Southampton’s academy they unearthed players such as Theo Walcott, Alex Oxlade Chamberlain and Adam Lallana and a certain Gareth Bale.

Speaking to fulhamfc.com Jennings explains his job as academy director: ‘‘My role includes devising the Academy programme up to U21 level, which covers all areas from player acquisition and contracts, staff engagement and deployment, through to budget management of the Academy and being the lead person for the Club reporting through to the Premier League.’’

Indeed, Jennings is arguably working harder than anyone in football, where he is plotting Fulham’s unlikely rise through a talented core of home grown players at Fulham’s Training Ground Motspur Park. Speaking to The Guardian’s Jacob Steinberg recently Jennings likened his multi-tasking role as ‘like spinning plates’.

Jennings task at hand is very different than it was at Southampton though. While Southampton’s catchment areas for talent is huge, with only League Two Portsmouth being close to what could be referred to as a rival. On the other hand, Fulham are competing with 14 other Football League clubs in London for the best talent around. With that, Fulham keep their squads small, as to grow stronger team cohesion.

Fulham’s Under 18 squad have a squad of just 17 players, where some of their competitors have squads as large as 39 players. “We don’t believe in over-recruitment. We would only look to recruit players who we genuinely feel have got an opportunity to succeed. In the Under-18s we have 15 outfield players, so it’s a squad of 17. We’ve compared that with our rivals and some are up to 39. How can you give competitive football – any football – to 39 players,” Jennings explained to Jack Pitt-Brooke of The Independent.

Jennings recently took a team out to Dallas, their Under-16s had to step up for Under-18 games, but they consider it a price worth paying. It is easier to have smaller groups, too, when they are so carefully picked.

Jennings brought Malcolm Elias to Fulham as head of talent ID and recruitment, having worked with him at previously Southampton. Jennings and Elias first met in the 1980s when they were both teachers in Oxford, looking after some of the Oxford Schools sides, before Elias joined Oxford United as youth development officer. Since then Elias has become one of the best talent-spotters in the game, and a vital part of Fulham’s work.

“Malcolm is, in my view, one of the best recruiters in the country, and has been for two or more decades,” says Jennings. “He is the best person at going the final furlong with a player. Some people identify the talent and that is job done, but that is never true for Malcolm,” he explained in his interview with The Independent last month.

Elias is described as “pivotal” to the recruitment of Fulham’s two most exciting players, Patrick Roberts (now at Manchester City) and Moussa Dembélé, both of whom have broken into the first team this year but should still play on Monday night in Fulham’s upcoming FA Youth Cup Final second leg.

Roberts, a local boy who impressed with Surrey Schools, but was playing for AFC Wimbledon when the parents of an existing Fulham player brought him to the attention of the club. Although Roberts has now left, he was one of 10 academy graduates to do so in the 2013/14 season and is a symbol of their ongoing improvements.

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Dembélé meanwhile was first seen playing for France Under-16s in a tournament in 2011. In August 2012, with his club Paris Saint-Germain having changed ownership, Fulham were alerted to his availability and quickly took advantage. Dembélé has been scoring goals for the Under-18s and Under-21s ever since.

There are other talents there too; 21 year old Dan Burn made his debut away at Old Trafford this season where Fulham secured a famous draw. There’s Cauley Woodrow, a forward who joined as a fourteen year old after being released by Tottenham.

Whether Fulham succeed in another ‘great escape’ this season and survive relegation no one knows yet. And although complete solace for fans won’t be found in knowing they have a genuinely successful academy, it will certainly help.

The second leg between Chelsea and Fulham in the FA Youth Cup Final will be played at 7.45pm on Monday 5 May at Stamford Bridge.

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The Unlikely Overachievers by the Thames – Fulham FC

By Kevin Kelly | Sep 28, 2015

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