Saints cruised past Pompey Youth in the 3rd round of the FA Youth cup at St Mary's last night to highlight the difference between having a good youth policy in place and not.
Saints youth policy was revamped around 1999/2000 when the club were concerned that the youth system had been neglected and was no longer producing top quality players, it was restructured, but behind the scenes Saints Chairman Rupert Lowe advised his monthly supporters meetings that it would be perhaps 6-7 years before we saw the fruits of that labour.
He wasn't far out with Theo Walcott being the first off the new production line belt, the biggest issue being recruiting potential future stars to the club at a young age before they were snapped up by other clubs, we had been losing out and so it would be a long process to truly get the developement system back on track and actually producing players of a good quality.
Luckily as the club went into decline after relegation from the Premier league, the youth system remained largely intact although some key players did leave, they were replaced by coaches of a decent calibre, truth is you only really find out how good any current year of the system is when those youngsters reach 17/18 and if they are good enough for the first team etc, hence Walcott in 2005 shows that the system was robust when it was revamped some 6 years earlier and he would have been joining the club, the emergence of Alex Oxlade Chamberlain in 2010 confirmed that it was still working during the dark years of 2005-07 and Luke Shaw is proof that since 2007 it has gone from strength to strength, now we are seeing proof that it is working and working well, although it will be 2019 before we know if this years work has been good.
In contrast Pompey have a history of ignoring youth, even when they were a Premier Club it wasn't a priority for them and Mark Chamberlain father of Alex, despite being a youth coach at Fratton preferred to send Alex to us than his own system, the likes of Jamie Ward Prowse followed suit and if wasnt a priority back in the good days it certainly wasnt a few years later as they plummetted down the leagues with financial troubles and they let go a lot of promising youngsters.
So Pompey's arrival at St Mary's for this youth cup tie was always going to be a one sided affair, quite simply they didn't have the quality in the side, they like Saints 15 years ago probably have signed players not with any expectation that they will progress to the first team, but due to the fact that to build a youth system you have to have players and you have to start somewhere.
But it was their cup final and the 600 Pompey fans who made up part of the 4,000 crowd were looking for some joy in a season which they are fast realising is out of neccessity going to be a good one, almost two years ago a member of the then Pompey Trust Board told me the biggest challenge for the Trust if they tok over the club would be managing the expectation of the fans, sadly they are struggling to do that as reading any Pompey message board over the past six months would tell you.
So they arrived at St Mary's looking for hope and left perhaps with a reality check, the Saints players lined up on the back of six years of professional coaching with first class facilities, whilst Pompey have been training on school fields there was only going to be one result and 7-0 was it.
Saints led 2-0 at the break, but a game Pompey side was struggling to hold it even to that and just before the break Bass in the Pompey goal made several saves as the home side looked like they could finish the tie before the turnaround, so the five second half goals were no great surprise, indeed but for Bass again it could have been double figures rather than the seven up that reminded older Saints supporters of the score at the John Milkins testimonial at Fratton Park in 1972, then ilkins the Pompey goalkeeper was given a present he didnt want to mark his big game.
So Pompey fans went home with a reality check, they know its going to be a long road back for their club, if they are looking to youth then they are going to have a long wait and they like Saints did well over a decade ago need to be patient as it could be six years before the fruits of their recovery start to show.