Not necessarily. A friend of mine was widowed in her twenties with 2 young children, she didn’t choose it believe me

Edited by Spiderman (12 Aug 2022 11.26am)

The dad in this case died of heart problem when the boy was about 5. Mother didn’t have a choice

You are right.
Just watched it, thought it was very good but you just know so many worlds are going to come crashing down!

I watched the programme too. Very interesting. One of the boys looked particularly talented.

I was curious however as to what sort of 'contract' a 12 year old boy is offered - is it 'we just want you to continue to train and develop with us' in order to avoid them moving to another team or is there a financial reward even at 12 years old eg paying expenses for example.

Yep, that's true about the contract, wasn't clear. Another point made by the TV critic in the Mail was 'What's happened to their school work?'. If they don't progress in the Academy the kids need some decent education to fall back on. Assume that's a given.

Dad and I watched games standing on the muddy slope of the Holmesdale Road end. He cheered and I rattled.

I think that's long been a talking point, even with Pros who in post football have been well documented succumbing to alcoholism, gambling addictions etc. as they have no 'plan'.

I've always felt as though that responsibility should be shared between parents and club. If you're a child, and led to believe you will be a multi-millionaire footballer one day, the prospect of that not happening could easily be nowhere near the forefront of your mind and resultantly decisions and the reality must come like a ton of bricks.

Edited by Nicholas91 (12 Aug 2022 2.18pm)

Now Zaha's got a bit of green grass ahead of him here... and finds Ambrose... not a bad effort!!!!