Newcastle United's Future of Youth

By Robert Norris

At the start of this season many Newcastle United fans would have been fearing the worst and wondering what would happen to their and my club, but from the first game of the season at The Hawthorns when a determined United side battled back from 1-0 down to draw 1-1 times have changed. Man of the match that day was Tim Krul, a youngster drafted in at half time after Steve Harper's injury. From that game the new Newcastle United Football Club was born! Gone are the days off paying overpriced, over hyped ageing players.


Mike Ashley has always wanted to move away from those days under Freddy Sheppard of big spending for reasons he has never actually said, but most fans will say it is because he wants to sell the club for a profit, or what he has tried to communicate that he wants to run his football club like Arsenal FC.



At the current time Newcastle United are 1 point off being officially crowned champions of the Coca Cola Championship and only freaky results in the last 3 games will deny them the chance to finally put a trophy in the cabinet.


But why is this a turning point for Newcastle United. Well now we have players who are wanting to play for the club. Agents have also been told that Newcastle are not going to pay the wages they used to, so players offered to Newcastle and those who Newcastle go after will want to play for the club and in front of 50,000 fans a week at St James Park. There is also the new youth policy where Newcastle United will target those under 26 in the hope of finding the gems of the future such as Haris Vuckic, Tamas Kadar and Nile Ranger.

This season could also see Newcastle United Under 18's crowned FA Youth Cup 2010. This tournament has seen players such as David Beckham, Paul Gascoigne, Wayne Rooney ect. For a Championship club to get its youth team to the final of this prestigious tournament or even win it would be a great statement of intent of how Newcastle United are going to be in the coming years! Players to watch out for who are currently playing in this team and who have an excellent chance of making the grade in the first team of Newcastle United are Haris Vuckic, James Tavernier, Jeff Henderson, Brad Inman, Samuel Adjei, Phil Airey, Sammy Ameobi and Arron Spear. I can just wish the lads luck and hope thay bring home the trophy.

Newcastle United's season of promise and hope continues as Newcastle United's Under 15's lifted the English 2010 Nike Premier Cup, beating on route to winning the Cup teams of the likes of Manchester City, Aston Villa and Chelsea. The young geordies have now progressed to the World Final that is held in Manchester. This is comprised of just 20 teams that were whittled down from 9,000! Players that have taken part in the world final over the years are the likes of Messi, Tevez, Torres, Fabregas, Xavi, Robinho, ect. If only 1 of the Newcastle United Under 15's turns out to be as good as one of these players it would be a great tribute for Newcastle. We could even try and sign a future Messi from one of the other clubs involved in this tournament.

Verdict: Coca Cola Championship Winners, 2010 Nike Premier Cup Winners, FA Youth Cup Semi-finalists.... so far! People say to move forward you have to have 1 step back before you can have 2 steps forward, and for Newcastle United this could well just be that step back into the Championship to reasses what has gone wrong in the past and how to move forward. So from this season beginning with having a young keeper in his first match being named man of the match to the end of the season, Newcastle are looking to the future and with Chris Hughton in charge and Mike Ashley finally backing the club Newcastle can get back to a position they belong in the Premier League.