No Hunger In Paradise Page 6

  ‘It is about instant context, so we talk about refuelling the body through food as topping up the battery on your cell phone. You recharge, revitalise, re-energise. If we delivered the same message using carbohydrate, proteins and minerals it would put a child to sleep.’

  Downie’s exchange over lunch with a 12-year-old, in the early phase of rehabilitation following the dislocation of his kneecap, was telling:

  ‘CJ, do you ever eat fruit or vegetables?’

  ‘No, I don’t really like them.’

  ‘What if I told you that if you ate that little pot of fruit every day you might get back five days earlier?’

  The boy rose, made his way on crutches to the food bar, and took two.

  ‘I don’t sell it as, “This is going to make you healthy.” This is going to make you play football better. This might actually help you play fifty league games. You will be stronger because of this. I spent twenty-five years working with senior players, and thought I was pretty knowledgeable, but my learning curve, working with this generation over the last five years, has been … boom.

  ‘We’ve had boys from really difficult backgrounds. To try and influence them, you’ve got to understand them first. If they don’t trust anyone it’s probably because every time they’ve run out of the elevator in their block of flats they know a guy might be there, waiting with a knife. So how are they going to suddenly trust me? They aren’t going to trust anyone. They can’t – they can only trust themselves.

  ‘Trust is not a word, it’s an action. You know a boy is comfortable with you when he can cry in front of you. You don’t judge him for that – because how many times have we cried in our lives? – but we have a private place, close to the main medical area, where we can take them aside. What a boy tells me there is completely different to what he tells me in front of his peers.’

  Downie recounted the story of a boy who launched into a tirade at him because he was reminded, continually, that his laces were not fastened. Downie allowed him five minutes to calm down before ushering him to the quiet room. The boy apologised as soon as the door was shut. It transpired his best friend had just committed suicide, and his aunt had also passed away. He had bottled up his grief until it could no longer be contained.

  ‘That’s a person we expect to play under pressure. That’s why I tell my staff that their principal role involves the welfare of people. Every one of them is a safeguarding officer. Football is a tough environment, and you must be there for everyone. It is not quite survival of the fittest, but dressing rooms can be brutal, and there are natural pecking orders.

  ‘I’ve seen a lot of potential bullying situations in thirty years, working in football. They are creeping in earlier, and I’m sure the money streaming into the game is a reason for it. That will not influence the younger boys, but maybe it influences families. Has bullying ever occurred here? There’s always going to be a certain form, but I think we’re pretty good at seeing it, and arresting it. All we can do is try and be available.’

  The intelligence operation relies on the simplicity of human interaction. Downie shakes the hand of each boy he meets, and makes a point of making eye contact. An experiment involving a wellness questionnaire, filled in on a mobile phone app, was abandoned when it became clear answers were structured to please the coaches, rather than inform them.

  Two full-time academy taxi drivers, CRB checked, are gatekeepers. One is an army veteran, the other has experience of dealing with gun crime. The insight of teachers at the independent Roman Catholic school to which City send more than seventy pupils in a pioneering educational programme, provides another reality check.

  If the CFA is a symbol of Mammon and modernity, St Bede’s College is a fusion of the academic and the spiritual. Aspiring footballers enter a parallel universe though a red-brick hall, above which a Latin passage from Psalm 33, Venite Filii Audite Me (‘Come, children, hearken to me’), is inscribed. They push back burnished wooden doors and walk to classes across a tessellated Victorian floor that reads ‘Salve’, the Latin for ‘Welcome’.

  The school was founded in 1876, though tiny blue plaster fishes, engraved on the supporting columns, hint at the building’s initial use as an aquarium. Sepia photographs from 1891, featuring stern priests and stiff-backed pupils, line the Our Lady Corridor, which leads to the chapel in which Roberto Mancini prayed privately before City’s title-winning victory over QPR in 2012.

  City meet annual fees of £10,785 per child, and, irrespective of whether a boy remains on their full-time training programme, guarantee to underwrite their education until they take their GCSEs at the age of 16. There are relatively few drop-outs since there is an element of self-selection; only the most promising players are offered a place. They must pass an entrance examination – tellingly some bring their agents with their parents to the introductory interview.

  Richard Robson became headmaster in January 2015, following a traumatic period in which the school was the centre of a historic sexual abuse case involving clergy who taught there from the fifties. He has strengthened focus on the fundamental values that attracted City’s Arab owners:

  ‘We want grounded children that are courageous; not just in their faith, but in finding out what they are good at, what they need to work harder at. We want them to be courageous in being the best friend they can be, courageous in their kindness, self-discipline, self-motivation and self-moderation.

  ‘It almost involves the ecology of the human being. It’s not just about making decisions about right and wrong, working or living in a civil society. It’s about gospel values, about a way of life. It’s about producing children that are selfless, good communicators. They can work as a team, and don’t take themselves too seriously. There is a fine line with young people, but they’re confident, not arrogant.

  ‘City’s football terminology involves their growth mindset. We have a similar philosophy. We want our children to grow step by step, target by target. We’re giving them an opportunity to realise the importance of how you behave, how you talk, how you present yourself, how sometimes your voice is not more important than another voice.’

  That’s a stretch target, given the travails of adolescence and the inevitability of City’s boys being a distinctive, easily identifiable group. To counteract that, they must attend in full school uniform and are forbidden to wear club-branded coats. They are subject to standard discipline: if any are placed in detention they miss training.

  The relationship entered its sixth academic year in September 2016 when an unprecedented thirteen boys from City’s under-12s were enrolled. Their training programme was realigned for a week in the autumn when they undertook the compulsory retreat, at Castlerigg Manor in the Lake District. On average only 20 per cent of the City boys are Roman Catholics, yet this spiritual bonding was seen as critical to their integration.

  The colour-coded timetable for the under-15s highlights the complexity and delicacy of the balance struck between the pastoral, educational and sporting demands on the boys. Their school week is divided into twenty-two hours of lessons, nine hours of football and three hours of physical activity. They spend one day exclusively at St Bede’s, another exclusively at the CFA. Teachers shuttle between venues.

  Andrew Dando, who, as Director of Studies, organises the academic programme, has the responsibility of rationalising conflicting challenges. A Manchester United fan, because he liked their kit when his family got their first colour TV in time for the 1976 FA Cup final, his sensitivity and grasp of character became apparent as we stood at the back of a class. He quietly pointed out two City players sitting in an informal semi circle around the teacher:

  ‘Felix is a joker, a good student. He is unfazed by anything, and will be happy in life whatever happens. Nathaniel is a great student, intelligent and articulate, but he worries. He is really driven: am I good enough? Am I pushing myself hard enough? Will someone overtake me? I suppose you are only ever one bad game away from a problem.’

  Iro
nically, Max Dunne, a pupil affiliated to Manchester United, provides the most compelling example of competing pressures. Initially informed he was going to be released, he completed revision for his GCSE examinations a week after his sixteenth birthday, while living on his own in a hotel during an extended trial for Southampton.

  Despite the additional distraction of being courted by nine more Premier League clubs, and thanks largely to online tuition by Jenny Hatton, his form teacher, he achieved two As, three Bs and two Cs. Football’s capricious nature was confirmed when Nicky Butt, United’s new Academy Director, reversed the decision not to offer him a scholarship.

  City’s coaches have noted an improvement in general levels of behaviour, and academic results have been above average, but the ambiguity of the situation is apparent. However exalted its ambitions and status, football does not exist in a vacuum; boys must deal with social issues and special pressures. Dr Robson acknowledges the difficulties:

  ‘I sometimes see the petulant teenager, told he is brilliant at football his whole life. What I’m trying to do is make him realise that hard work, diligence, politeness, kindness, humility and mercy are the qualities he needs to exhibit, not an arrogant footballer’s persona. Some of them, especially if they are very, very good and remuneration is going on, are not helped by their agents giving their ego a boost.

  ‘There’s a real sense of, I know I’m signed until I’m eighteen. I’ve got a really bright future ahead of me. We’re trying to deflate that, bring them back down to earth by saying, look, it’s about who you are as a person. It’s what is on the inside that counts, not on the outside. I’m trying to build strength of character because generally, behind the bravado, there is insecurity.

  ‘I see boys trying to make their way in life. They are very, very gifted and talented in one aspect but they are fragile, so scared that it is not going to work out. That’s when they have to face their fear, and ask, “Please will you help me?” It can take a little time to get that point, because it is humbling and makes them vulnerable, the antithesis of what they want to be in the football world.

  ‘At the end of the day I can’t get away from the fact these boys are here because they want to be professional footballers. Do I see them as footballers? No. Am I actually even that bothered that they are good at football? Not really, because they don’t play for my school teams. School is school and club is club, but we have similar expectations. Aspiration, drive and achievement.’

  Mark Allen, as City’s Academy Director Dr Robson’s opposite number, stresses, ‘We try and bring as much reality and normality to these boys’ lives as possible,’ but accepts that, ‘Ultimately we know that not everybody is going to go on and have a glorious professional career.’ Intentions are good, but the landscape is hazardous.

  Allen has never forgotten the sense of alarm and worthlessness he felt when casually rejected by Swindon as an 18-year-old apprentice: ‘It was an end-of-season presentation. We were invited on the pitch to collect the trophy. After that game, the coach in question said, “Listen, we’ll be in touch.” And that was it.

  ‘I was distraught, so it stuck with me for a long time. I’ve been there. I’ve sat across that table. I know what it’s like to hear the word “sorry”. It’s lived with me and been a major factor in terms of how I approach this and why I think it has to be as rounded as it is at City.’

  Grant Downie is equally unafraid to acknowledge reality: ‘We’re entering into a new phase. Rewards are coming at an earlier stage in people’s careers than ever before. That’s partly dictated by economics, because competition for talent is intense. Big clubs chase talent around and reward it more. Does it concern me? If you’re not concerned about it then take your head out of your bottom.

  ‘If I think of three players here I would class in that [much-coveted] bracket, one of them, I know for certain, it won’t affect. It’s just the way he acts, the way he behaves. The other two I’m a little more concerned about, partly because we don’t control the environment when they go home. All we can do is try and guide them on what will be a bumpy journey.

  ‘On a more general Premier League level, and not specific to our club, if players are well rewarded at sixteen, and unemployed by twenty-two, as the case could be, what’s the incidence of alcoholism, drug-related problems and even suicide going to be like? Pretty high. And that does bother me. I would have no pleasure in producing players for the first team if the rejects ended up being drunks who wanted to batter women and drive cars too fast. That’s too big a price, in my view.’

  Downie’s is not a lone voice. The vast majority of those I have met in youth development dread the moment of rejection. They uniformly describe being troubled by the experience, even if, professionally, they accept it as part of life. City have a structured, humane exit strategy but the fact remains that the niceties of their nuanced corporate social responsibility programme cannot soften the blow they inflict on callow youths.

  Benevolence is not an affectation, but the CFA, like all other academies, is judged objectively, on how many first-team players it produces. At least in City’s case, there is a rare sense of strategic and philosophical harmony with the head coach. Pep Guardiola is a familiar figure at academy training sessions, and takes the Elite Development Squad at least once a week.

  Ten academy graduates, including Sancho, the star of an exciting England under-17 team, and Colin Rösler, son of former City striker Uwe, were given four-year professional contracts on the eve of the 2016–17 season. ‘Your future starts now,’ Allen told them. ‘These will be the most important years of your life.’

  Five development players, including central defender Tosin Adarabioyo and England under-21 goalkeeper Angus Gunn, former St Bede’s students, were promoted to the first-team squad in September. The gesture of faith prompted a reappraisal of an anecdote, shared by a fellow Premier League manager as the Spaniard was settling in.

  When Guardiola met Roman Abramovich as part of an unrequited courtship ritual which lasted from 2012 to early 2016, he made two demands: ‘Give me a hundred footballers and two perfect pitches.’ The Chelsea owner agreed eagerly, and was further encouraged by the coach’s lack of apparent interest in confirming his salary, dismissed as the responsibility of Pere Guardiola, his brother and agent.

  A third demand, thrown suddenly into the mix, got the oligarch’s full attention. Pep insisted that Abramovich and Chelsea’s coaching staff list the best fifteen academy prospects; in return he promised to take personal oversight of the development of the best four players in each age group. The message was unequivocal: this would be a club run not by Abramovich’s ego, but by the all-encompassing philosophy of Guardiola’s mentor, Johan Cruyff. Reading between the lines of the corporate positivity that laces the language of one of the world’s richest clubs, this is what is taking shape behind the tall black metal gates and security-screened turnstiles that guard the CFA complex. On a clear day, City can see for ever. The view for other, smaller if not lesser, clubs is ominously obscured.

  4

  Death of a Dream

  TWELVE 7-YEAR-OLD BOYS, in red-and-black club tracksuits, were paraded around Griffin Park at half-time with footballs at their feet. A public address announcer, alongside them on the pitch, babbled about the brightness of their future. Parents captured the moment for posterity on their mobile phones, and strangers in a 12,301 crowd, assembled for Brentford’s 3–0 win over Fulham on April 30, 2016, applauded like indulgent uncles.

  Cruelly, devastatingly, it was a charade, an illusion. The contracts the under-8 squad had signed for the 2016–17 season were worthless, since the decision to close an apparently thriving, well-respected academy was about to be ratified. Candour was considered impossible because HR protocols dictated that the club’s priority, as part of a thirty-day consultation process, was to inform coaches and support staff they were to be made redundant.

  It takes sixty-three minutes to annihilate innocence, for a dream to endure its death throes.
That was the precise length of the meeting on May 11 that confirmed a ‘restructure’ that exposed football’s family values as a façade. It had a false start because of microphone problems, and ended with tearful parents clinging to one another, like shipwreck survivors to driftwood.

  They wished each other ‘good luck’ and with a final entreaty to ‘take care’, walked out into the night to counsel sons who were struggling to come to terms with the magnitude of their betrayal. Only a fortnight previously boys across the age groups had signed new contracts, celebrated their retention and basked in the measured praise of coaches who preached loyalty to the cause.

  Three days beforehand, Brentford’s under-13 team had followed Borussia Dortmund and Manchester City in winning the Elite Neon Cup, staged by AEK Athens. Suddenly, the boys’ souvenir photographs with Pelé had become tokens of what might have been. On that same Sunday afternoon, the under-17s had lost only on penalties to Liverpool in the final of the Ipswich Town tournament. Bigger clubs were being upstaged.

  The parents were addressed by departing academy manager Ose Aibangee: ‘I am disappointed, frustrated, angry for you. It has been an absolute pleasure to work with such talented players. It is not a job. It is what we love, what we do. These are fantastic young men, who work hard. They are disciplined and respectful. That’s a credit to you. Have a safe future.’

  The parents’ ire, directed at Phil Giles and Rasmus Ankersen, co-directors of football, had been raw, visceral and relentless: ‘This is disgusting behaviour … shame on you … we were not considered … this is complete crap … my son broke his heart last night … you don’t give a toss … this is not fair, it is not on … have you taken into account the psychological effects on our boys? … how can you say you have cared for our children?’

  A supplementary statement, issued by the club, spoke of ‘developing value’. It argued that ‘the development of young players must make sense from a business perspective’. Yet the most telling moment of the evening came when Giles admitted: ‘I have two sons. In your situation I would be exactly the same.’ He ‘regretted’ the pointless parade of the under-8s.