Preparation (Part Two)

Cardiff City’s academy caters for several hopeful professional footballers from the age of eight onwards. The ultimate aim is to produce players for the club. They cast their net wide, so how many youngsters do they have there at any time? “I think in total, all the way round the age groups a rough estimate would be around 140, because we are constantly bringing in new lads on six week trials and trialists,” the Director of their academy, Neal Ardley, told us.

He understands that the vast majority of those boys that pass through Cardiff’s academy  will never play professional football. It’s about percentages – most of whom fall by the wayside. What does the club do for them?

“I think for every age group at the end of every season you have a few drop out,” Ardley told us. “We run development centres. We have nine around the area and what we try and do is develop them and if they need it we try and drop them back into our development centre.” So how do they work?

“We’ve got our coaches running the development centres, so we can keep an eye on them and keep tabs on them,” he said. “When they get to Under-16s we support them as much as we can. We help them out to get a look at other clubs, or other clubs look at them and Steve Ellison who runs our education department speaks to them about college – where they can go, how they can take it forward – the links that we’ve got with coaches.” So there are safety nets for players that have talent, but ultimately don’t fit Cardiff’s needs. What about those who won’t make it at any level in in professional football?

Too Little:

There are far too few British-Asian footballers playing professional football, let alone in the top leagues in Britain. Michael Chopra is the most successful of the current crop. He was the first to play in the Premier League and score in it – European football too – while with Newcastle United. He currently plays for Cardiff City and is their most expensive player at £3m.

Meanwhile, Zesh Rehman soon followed him, playing for Fulham before joining Bradford City, which made him the first British-Asian player to ply his trade in all four divisions. He is also the first Pakistani international to play in England, despite having been born here and representing England at youth level. So has football done enough to bring Asian talent through?

“I don’t know if it’s done enough,” Chopra told us. “You’ve got a lot of clubs trying to step it up now. I notice a couple of months ago Chelsea were talking about something like that as well. I think West Ham have been doing a lot in the Asian community as well. I think there are a couple of clubs going over to India to try to help it out and progress it. I think that’s what it needs really just a little push forward now and I think once you see a few more players like myself that are coming through, I think there’ll be a lot more chomping at the bit.”