Young Player of the Season

[Chris]

Well Done to Haydn Hollis who claimed the NCFCOSA's Young Player of the Season.
 

Yesterday fans and members of the NCFCOSA attended the Young Player of the Season Award Evening. The inaugural award for the best under-21 player who has come through Notts’ academy as a scholar was scooped up by Hayden Hollis. Fellow nominees Greg Tempest, Curtis Thompson, Fabian Spiess, and Kyle Dixon also attended, along with other academy players, and youth team coaches Dan Leivers and Anny Ninje.
 

Everyone present felt privileged to hear First Team coach/manager Shaun Derry lay out his plans for the integration of young players into the first team squad and give a frank and honest appraisal of the players coming through the system. We were left in no doubt that Notts have an exciting time ahead.
NCFCOSA's Website
 

[liampie]

well done to him and all the young players. its great to see us promoting youths!

did anyone here attend?

[Chris]

Yes, It was a great night.

Nice to see fans rallying around the young players, whilst Shaun Derry spoke about why the Dev Squad was being disbanded and he shared how each players progressed since him and Greg Abbott came into the club.

Brilliant night!

[super_ram]

Well done to all the you young players and all involved!

[upthepies]

Haydn really deserved the award, it really is great to see!

[Feral Fox]

So Joe, are they going to replace the development squad with an old fashioned reserve team entered in a league?

[Chris]

So Joe, are they going to replace the development squad with an old fashioned reserve team entered in a league?

Nope, Derry wants to focus on knowing the full strengths of his squad and players available for selection. He doesn't want to guess on their abilities, he wants to be able to see them during training and work closely with them. He hopes to have a squad of 26+, with regular players making the bench. The players who won't be getting regular football, the remaining 8 or whatever will play friendlies against local sides.

Shaun really wants to build on the local connections and get the players competing against first team players, rather than mismatch squads.

The example was Forest and Derby, where Kyle Dixon played outstandingly at right back and both Forest and Derby had many first team players within those squads.

Whilst we have a limited budget, which will probably be the case for some years ahead it makes sense.

Speaking honestly, It shocked and annoyed me. I felt it would be a mistake, however listening to Shaun Derry and speaking with him. I can clearly see the idea behind the move and it really will make it more of a step up. Players coming up from the youth team will be getting that extra push, so we may have a squad full of our home grown players.

[Feral Fox]

Let's see what the future brings us then. I've always advocated more Local lads to be in and around the squad, but the concern has always been lack of competitive match games and match fitness since the reserve team was abolished. I hope the decisions being made now will reap benefits in the future for us.

[cheeky~k8]

Well done to the winner and all the young players. I bet it was an interesting evening.