Why have West Ham struggle to produce Strikers? In the first of a 2 part blog Blind Hammer examines a little acknowledged structural problem with youth development at West Ham
The current scramble, in the light of Valencia’s injury, to invest resources in a striker is but the latest example of what has become an annual event at West Ham. Every year we always seem to need to buy or loan in strikers in an effort to increase the team’s potency. Rarely has this need been met from within. I hope I am proved wrong, but sadly Elliot Lee appears to be the latest striker hopeful who will probably follow the likes of Freddie Sears and Gary Alexander to the lower divisions to continue their careers.
In the first match I ever saw at the Boleyn in November 1968, Geoff Hurst and Brian Dear were part of a fizzling team that demolished Leicester City. Hurst and Dear were both products of West Ham’s then famous youth development. Geoff Hurst actually went to my school in Chelmsford, whilst Brian Dear was an East Ender who joined the club as a 15 year old. He never reached the heights of Hurst but nevertheless scored 33 goals in 69 league appearances, a ratio of goal success that would be startling nowadays for a youth product and would probably invoke suggestions of international recognition. Dear never got anywhere near the England team and was really a footballing flash in the pan. Nevertheless he played in a victorious European Cup Winners Final team, and holds the record for the quickest ever five goals in an English game, 20 minutes either side of half time, in a 1965 FA Cup home tie against West Bromwich Albion. Dear though severely blotted his copybook with Greenwood in 1970 when he was found to be with Bobby Moore, Jimmy Greaves and Clyde Best in the infamous nightclub session, hours before West Ham crashed out 4-0 to Blackpool in the third round of the FA Cup. He was never really seen again.
The point is however is that it is now 50 years since 1965 and with one glorious exception the Academy has not produced any similar talent which equates to the achievements of Brian Dear, let alone Geoff Hurst. The exception is of course Tony Cottee who was able to delight in the service provided by another local product, Trevor Brooking during the 1980s.
We may be able to claim a little credit for the development of Jermaine Defoe, but it should be remembered that he was actually a product of the Charlton Academy that we were able to poach, much to their chagrin. Defoe spent little development time at West Ham in comparison to his time at Charlton, instead cutting his teeth in his famous year long loan spell at Bournemouth where he smashed goal scoring records.
Clearly the Academy has produced some good players over the last 50 years but rarely have these players been strikers. Defenders yes, Ferdinand and Tomkins immediately come to mind, and midfield players relatively frequently, from Geoff Pike to the more illustrious Joe Cole and Frank Lampard Junior, and more contemporaneously Mark Noble.
But when was the last time a West Ham development striker was even a regular part of the first team squad let alone the team itself?
According to David Sullivan the current overhauling of the Academy setup at West Ham is prompted by a general concern about the once famous Academy’s recent failure to bring through players of sufficient quality. Sullivan’s concern is well merited. He points out that the Academy invests £4 million a year in producing talent. Presumably then the club have invested something like £30 to £40 million over the last 10 years in essentially producing Noble and Tomkins, neither of which are necessarily guaranteed a starting place in Bilic’s assembling new team. There are some promising signs from Reeces Burke and Oxford but again these are defensive/midfield developments. Elliot Lee may still develop but he did not set Luton on fire in the same way that Defoe impacted Bournemouth in his spell there.
Of course it would only take the production of one successful striker every 5 years to completely revolutionise the efficacy and cost effectiveness of the Academy. However its current success rate is one striker every 50 years. To my mind this is unacceptable. In part 2 of my blog I will examine the disastrous consequences of this Gap in our Academy places on our Club transfer policy, and start to suggest some strategic improvements which may possibly finally start to resolve this historic deficiency.
David Griffith