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Editor's Notes: The 606 Report to The FA Commission

2013-10-15T16:41:23+00:00

The FA Commission was announced last week and with more names expected to join this week 606 felt the eleventh man on the commission should be the fans. So we used Sunday's show to create our own report for the FA, saving them months of meetings and discussion.

Here are the recommendations made by the 606 listeners to improve the number of English players playing in the Premier League and, in turn, improve the form of the England National Side.

Katie: There should be proper investment and practical support for Grass Roots. The money in football should be spread evenly so more of it filters down into grass roots.

John: Just let kids play football. Don't over-coach players. If all players want to be Messi in training, let them be Messi!

Warren: Every child must train with a ball. Don't rush young kids into competitive football. Parents and coaches should work more closely together.

Malcolm: Improve the quality of coaches everywhere, especially at Grass Roots. Encourage dribbling (something Chris Waddle was saying on Friday's 606 show), running at players and playing without fear!

Paul: Don't reduce the number of foreign players in the Premier League. Keep them and let English players learn from them until we have enough young quality coming through.

Mike: There needs to be a minimum quota of English / British players in a match-day squad, people think we already have one but that is not the case

Daniel: Change the current loan system. Top clubs should be forced to sell or loan abroad into more competitive league so our young players learn different skills.

Aidan: Make sure our best players get the time they need to recover after injury. If they have to pull out of an England game, there should be a rule that their club cannot play them for a month after that game. The Premier League should also be reduced to 16 teams. We believe that was the original stated direction the Premier League was going to take.

Simon: The FA should pay us to do the Level 1 coaching badge instead of us paying the FA. This would encourage hundreds more coaches to do their badges.

Brett: if there are cheaper coaching courses, why don't we know about them? The FA should shout about those courses more so people feel they are accessible and not too expensive.

The twelfth man is always valuable and the report is winging it's way to Greg Dyke as we speak.

Editor’s Notes: Turning the tanker

2013-09-10T16:40:40+00:00

On Sunday's 606 we took Greg Dyke's lead and decided to tackle the problem of the England national side. In 90 minutes. From the response you gave us we needed 900 minutes. For a nation that is supposedly out of love with the National side you care an awful lot about it.

So how exactly would you, the 606 listeners "turn the tanker" and make sure Greg Dyke hits his target of winning the Wold Cup in Qatar in 2022?

The show started with calls focusing on the current squad and the power of the Premier League. Paul in Doncaster suggested clubs just do not have the interest of the national side at their core. And as Wrighty said on the show, he's even heard managers ask their players if they really need to go on international duty.
But we soon got to the root of it, the grass root in fact and you told us it’s all about young players and getting in early.

You wanted more coaches - there are currently 203 English coaches with a pro license. Spain have 2140, while Germany have over one thousand.

Russell in Ormskirk was a call which certainly got our attention. An under 10s coach for Southport Trinity, he told us isn’t about a lack of talent or players - it is a lack of facilites. For example, his team share council pitches but the council had recently cut the grass... and left it three inches long. As a coach he really wanted to implement a passing ethic. No tiki taka in Southport then…

Facilities were something that came up throughout the show. Russell wanted 3G pitches and suggested there were 100 teams trying to play on just one pitch. The Premier League have given £200m to grass roots football since 2000 ( and you can probably multiply that by five due to partnership funding that the League has leveraged) and the FA puts £38m into grass roots a year (so £494m since 2000). On that evidence the money is there, but our callers wanted to know exactly where the money is going.

Quotas were another solution which came up during the show - Bob in Seaford felt the Premier League should follow the lead of County cricket and introduce quotas on overseas players. He asked Wrighty if his progress would have been hindered had Palace had the number of foreigners they do in the squad now. Ian said yes. Bob suggested a 50/50 quota of British players versus foreign players. What are your thoughts on that?
John from South London wanted professional players to spend more time out in the communities using their influence to inspire young people. He suggested more players should coach young kids like he had when he was younger, which was funded by the council.

And then there was the radical suggestion from James in Birmingham who wanted an Under-21's England side to compete in the Championship the year before a World Cup. This, he said would help the players gel and stop them warming the benches at the top four clubs. The top eleven of the squad could then go on and play in the World Cup the following yaer.

So, from the 90 minute show we present you the 606 mandate to save the national side and help England win the World Cup in 2022:

Get in early with young players
Give them the best coaches who are incentivised
Provide better pitches and facilities
Encourage scouts to watch more homegrown players
Get professional players in to inspire the young players and coach them in their communities
Do you agree with these? What would you add? Would you like to see an England Under-21’s team in the championship?

Listen again to the show here and let us know your thoughts below.

Editor's notes: Should there be a transfer window for managers?

2013-08-28T09:51:25+00:00

It never ceases to amaze me how one comment, text, line can change the course of a programme. On Saturday the show was unusual in that we didn't discuss the top four clubs for more than six seconds in the whole two hours. It wasn't a deliberate ploy to balance the Arsenal heavy week that had preceeded, the stories were just elsewhere on Saturday: Everton and Newcastle fans had dominated the phone lines until Darren read out the following text: "Louis in London 'Travelled to Stoke today as a Palace fan and i've had enough. Holloway has to go and let someone in before the window closes . We have a simple choice now change or go down'."

Darren and Robbie reacted calling the text " lunacy" and "ridiculous" but it's the show of the fans so everyone is allowed their opinion. The Palace fans called up in their droves thereafter...all in Holloway's defence. Keith, Patrick and Adam, all on their way home from the game came on the show to praise not just Holloway but how they had played at The Britannia. We'd all watched Palace v Spurs the week before and had been impressed with how they had kept Spurs at bay. We also kept across their trip to Stoke on Saturday afternoon and agreed that they had the better of things in the first half.

When Kelly and Wrighty came into the studios on Sunday they both brought up the Palace calls immediately. There'd been a bit in the papers that morning about Holloway being under pressure, especially after a stressful transfer window, but it was ludicrous. Having brought in Phillips, Gayle and Chamakh, Holloway has brought in two more strikers than Arsenal have. That got us talking about a transfer window for managers. Kelly was in total favour of this- August and January windows only. What do you think? Would this help stabilise our Leagues? We had a Carlisle fan on the show on Sunday singing the praises of Greg Abbott. Greg is the third longest serving manager across the top four leagues - and he's only been in charge for five seasons (Wenger and Paul Tisdale are one and two) . Would a transfer window for managers work? Let us know what you think by commenting below.

Listen back to this weekend's shows.

What does it mean to be an Aston Villa fan

2013-02-14T16:27:15+00:00

Hi, I’m Rory from the 606 team. In this week’s podcast Mark and Robbie asked for your thoughts on what it is to be a ‘fan’. As someone who works on the show but at heart is just a fan- here’s my thoughts on being a Villa fan right now.

It’s safe to say the last 6 or 7 weeks have been amongst the toughest I’ve known as a Villan.

A heady four days in mid-December saw us reach the Capital One cup semi-finals and comprehensively beat Liverpool at Anfield with a starting eleven that featured six academy graduates.

A lot has changed since then and there is now palpable concern regarding the club’s destiny. After 25 consecutive years in English football’s top flight this could be the first time many Villa fans have seen this club fall into the second tier.

Villa fans are a self-deprecating bunch and readily admit it. We are perhaps most unique for our perpetual pessimism which I find odd given that, on any match day at Villa Park, one might expect at least a couple of thousand fans in the stadium to have been in Rotterdam in May 1982 when this club won the most coveted prize in club football against a mighty Bayern Munich. They’ve witnessed Villa be crowned Champions of Europe. For those who weren’t, the commentary of Peter Withe’s winning goal adorns the North Stand on a giant, claret banner; “Shaw, Williams, prepared to venture down the left. There's a good ball in for Tony Morley. Oh, it must be and it is! It's Peter Withe”. It’s as if previous successes make current shortcomings more difficult to endure.

My generation of Villa fans know a very different club though; a solid premier league outfit but increasingly becoming one of the also-rans. We’ve lost all three of our Wembley appearances since 2000 and blew a golden chance to qualify for the Champions League in 2008/2009. These barren years have scarred us collectively and it’s particularly evident this year.

There isn’t a poisonous atmosphere in the Holte End it’s much more an air of resignation. I don’t recall a single chant of “we’re the famous Aston Villa and we’re going to Wembley” during the second leg against Bradford, even after Benteke’s opening goal and it’s genuinely because few thought we had it in us, even against a side in mid-table of League Two.

Being a Villa fan at the moment is, to put it bluntly, not much cop. That said, we’re not the first team to suffer a downturn in fortunes and we won’t be the last.

With regards to the wider discussion of what it means to be a “fan”, I struggle to see how a single definition can be proffered and universally agreed upon. The on-going saga at Blackburn and the details of Notts County ending up in the High Court this week are both relevant to this debate I think.

A tumultuous season at Blackburn Rovers has seen five managers take charge of the first team as the club’s owners further frustrate a fan base whose patience has clearly already worn very thin. Attendances at Ewood have slumped and hopes that the fans would come flooding back post the sacking of Steve Kean have not come to fruition. Stay-away Rovers fans will tell you that they’re acting in what they believe to be the best interests of the club, in no longer ploughing their money in, in an effort to oust the unpopular Venky’s from the club hierarchy.

Meanwhile at Meadow Lane, Notts County chairman Ray Trew said in January that he was “not prepared to invest more money in the club because of falling attendances and a lack of support”.

Trew went on to say; “the only way I will inject further monies is in the form of loans. If I am being totally honest I am not motivated to even do that currently because I am not being supported by you, the fan base”.

This got me thinking, what use is a fan to a club if he/she doesn’t contribute financially? It’s undoubtedly a fairly dispiriting angle to approach things from but it may carry weight in this day and age.

What makes a fan? What's it like being a fan of your club at the moment? Let us know by commenting in the section below.