What happened to North East football?

Surrounded by the National Parks of the Lake District, the Yorkshire Dales, Northumberland and the North York Moors, the North East of England tends to feel isolated from what lies below Scotch Corner. With that, comes a sense of separation and regional pride. Nowhere is this more apparent than in football, where former Newcastle United chairman Sir John Hall spoke of fighting for ‘The Geordie Nation’. In a world of labels and stereotypes, the North East has a rather fortunate tag – English football’s most passionate hotbed. It’s both a gift and a curse.


With 52,000 sell-outs at St James’ Park and a 48,000-seat capacity at the Stadium of Light, the region’s two main clubs have loyal fan bases that live their lives through their 11 heroes. It’s such a shame, then, that these clubs are in the midst of an increasingly barren spell, which isn’t likely to end soon. The current state of North East football doesn’t look good. Newcastle are mediocre under the Mike Ashley regime, where ambition and glory are dirty words. An attractive balance sheet is priorities one to a hundred. Sunderland were extremely lucky not to be relegated last season, just like the year before. Middlesbrough are floundering in the Championship to half-full crowds, whilst Darlington were dissolved in 2012 and forced to start again in the league pyramid.


The main source of joy has actually come from non-league Wembley trips. Whilst Sunderland made it to last season’s Capital One Cup Final, they lost - as expected. West Auckland Town became FA Vase runners-up in May, a competition which has been dominated by the North East in recent years. The last six finals have had local representation, with five wins and two losses. The 2011-12 Final was contest by two teams from up here, as Dunston UTS beat West Auckland 2-0. Finally, Gary Mills’ Gateshead were one victory away from being in the Football League for the first time since 1960. A heartbreaking defeat to Cambridge United halted that.



So the North East is a place full of contradictions – they have huge crowds but no silverware, they have Britain’s biggest junior league but barely produce Premier League players. A glorious talent line gave the world Paul Gascoigne, Peter Beardsley, Jackie Milburn, Chris Waddle and Alan Shearer but, in recent times, has produced far too many players like Michael Chopra, Matty Pattison, Paul Huntington and Martyn Waghorn. There was some anger amongst Newcastle fans recently when Sky’s Gary Neville and Jamie Carragher fell into the trap of believing old Toon Army clichés – the supporters demand trophies, they would rather lose 4-3 than win 1-0 and they insist that local lads be played.


These are pure lies - the quality of local products often isn’t good enough. And, even when they might be, Newcastle and Sunderland believe they can’t afford to patiently integrate them into the first team, when the financial gains of Premier League football are so eye-watering. It was revealed in 2011 that County Durham has produced more of the Premier League era’s English players than anywhere else in the country, yet current contribution is minimal. Of the few current players that are from the North East, even fewer actually play there.


In 2013-14, Newcastle only had Shola Ameobi (10 league starts), Paul Dummett (7), Steven Taylor (6) and Sammy Ameobi (3) representing their youth academy. That’s 26 starts in total, only 6.2% of their season’s total of 418 – less than one player per match. French players claimed 152 starts (36.4%), whilst the Dutch brought 59 (14.1%). 2012-13 was only slightly better thanks to Steven Taylor’s run in the team, coming in at 9.1%. Highly regarded talents from 12 months ago like Gael Bigirimana, Adam Campbell, James Tavernier and Shane Ferguson are already on the scrapheap. Expect Rolando Aarons, Adam Armstrong and Remie Streete to follow the same path.



As for Sunderland, the only product from their academy was Jack Colback, whose 28 starts make up just 6.6% of the 418 total and is outnumbered by Italian, Irish and Scottish players. However, the Black Cats have Adam Johnson and Lee Cattermole who – whilst not from their own academy – are North Eastern products from their time at Middlesbrough. This makes the number a respectable 18.4% - roughly two per match.


The one saviour is Middlesbrough, whose academy at Rockliffe is arguably on a par with Southampton, Manchester United, Liverpool and West Ham’s. As well as Johnson and Cattermole, they’ve produced Stewart Downing, James Morrison, Chris Brunt, Danny Graham and David Wheater. If Jonathan Woodgate and Rhys Williams can be labelled Rockliffe graduates, their 2013-14 starting line-ups were 31.2% North Eastern. But this is in the Championship and it can be argued that Seb Hines, Ben Gibson and Richard Smallwood would never get a game at Premier League level.


So what are the reasons for such a lack of top-level players from this ‘hotbed’? Is it a lack of talent, distracted children or negligence? The pressures of the Premier League led Sunderland to sign a staggering 19 players last season, yet only two were English – Altrincham’s Duncan Watmore and Reading-born Scottish international Liam Bridcutt. 19 players and not one of them from the North East. Newcastle’s French experiment is a result of bloated transfer fees for English players, so the club exploited the incredible value for money across the channel. Now, Ferguson, Campbell and the younger Ameobi are nowhere near the first team.


But, despite these pressures, players that are good enough are still emerging nationwide. If the players are good enough and trained well, there are no barriers. The two main North East products from the last five years are Jordan Henderson and Andy Carroll. They proved this, before being quickly sold on for vast sums of money. Perhaps the North East isn’t as working class as it was, so children have more distractions. School teams suffer because top players are forbidden from playing by their academies, whilst the ‘kick a can down an alley way’ image is long gone.



The problem seems to run deeper. For various reasons, talent spotters couldn’t get local kids like Bobby Charlton, Jack Charlton, Michael Carrick, Steve Bruce, Bobby Robson, Stan Mortensen and Norman Hunter to sign professional terms with hometown clubs. They had to become superstars elsewhere. Bryan Robson only played North East football at the twilight of his career, as Middlesbrough’s player-manager! To let these players slip through the cracks is shocking and the occasional Gascoigne or Carroll doesn’t make up for that. Bobby Charlton was even advised by cousin Jackie Milburn not to sign for his own club, allegedly saying: “They are dreadful, they’re not very good for coaching”.


Newcastle United assistant John Carver told the story of how they missed out on Michael Carrick. Carrick’s parents were shocked to learn that Kevin Keegan had scrapped the reserve team in the mid-90s, so he had to go somewhere else, to West Ham. “It stopped players progressing in their careers because they weren’t getting regular football”, said former Newcastle forward Paul Brayson. “And I think it made a lot of younger lads think twice about joining the club.” Kenny Dalglish brought the reserve team back in 1997, but it was too late.


Carrick was one of many local boys and girls to play in the Russell Foster Youth League. Now based in Newbottle, it is the biggest youth league in the country, with many thousands of players competing in divisions running between the ages of eight and 21. Five famous participants were Carrick, Downing, Carroll, Johnson and Henderson - all are now regular England internationals.


Foster himself has spoken about his pride that night, but isn’t happy that clubs like to have their cake and eat it. “Not one professional club has paid the league or individual clubs”, he told the Evening Chronicle. “Those at grassroots have not seen a penny of it, but are expected to continue unearthing jewels.”


He told a story of Paul Robinson’s transfer from Darlington to Newcastle in 1998. “Shortly afterwards, [former club] Redby Boys approached me to ask how they could go about getting a donation from the transfer. I suggested he should write to both Newcastle and Darlington, which he did. You know what the outcome was? Newcastle never even replied and Darlington sent Redby two mugs!”



North East players will still occasionally make an England team – Celtic’s Fraser Forster was in the World Cup squad – but the FA is making it tougher. Greg Dyke revealed plans to introduce a League 3 for Premier League ‘B’ teams, plus Strategic Loan Partnerships which see mass loan deals to lower league clubs. He says it is to increase the number of English top-flight players, yet fans complain that it would tarnish the identity of lower clubs – who would effectively be ‘feeder clubs’. Whilst young players would be sent down to increase playing time, it’d stop late-bloomers rising through the leagues. Looking at the England World Cup squad, would Adam Lallana, Rickie Lambert and Phil Jagielka be there had League 3 already existed?


So how can the number of English – and therefore North East - top-flight players be increased? It is time to analyse the current state of North East football. The crowds remain huge, the passion still burns but major trophies seem further away than ever. Newcastle United are owned by a man who has no intention of winning, just having a stable balance sheet. There needs to be answers as to why the region isn’t producing Premier League players, why modern academies may be a hindrance to youth development, why local non-league teams are finding success in the FA Vase and what can be done to return the North East to its past glory days.