Does the Youth Cup really predict success?

Chelsea and Fulham meet in a West London derby next week to contest the FA Youth Cup Final. Fans of both clubs and many others are predicting bright futures for the players involved...but should they?

The FA Youth Cup, the main cup competition for club's Under 18 sides, has been run since 1953. Plenty of fans see it not only as an opportunity for them to get a glimpse of the potential next homegrown player to reach the first team, but as an indicator of their team's youth policy as a whole. For example, look at the Wikipedia entry for the Cup. In the introductory paragraphs, we are told:

The tournament has served as a springboard into the professional game for many top British players. The likes of George Best, John Barnes, Ryan Giggs,David Beckham, Gary Neville, Frank Lampard, Michael Owen, Steven Gerrard, Jamie Carragher, Joe Cole, Wayne Rooney, Theo Walcott, Jack Wilshere, Adam Johnson and Gareth Bale had all won the tournament or played in the final. (Source)

And it doesn't stop there. Many great teams have, allegedly, had their true foundation in the Youth Cup. For example, Manchester City's 1986 Youth Cup winners inspired a book. Other clubs have reunited their Youth Cup winners to parade in front of the fans. The 1992 Manchester United Youth Cup side even have a film about their exploits - the Class of '92. And then there are plenty of "where are they now" articles about Youth Cup teams, such as this one.

But is winning the Youth Cup all its cracked up to be?


I started with a list of all the Youth Cup winners. The aim is to compare them with club performance in subsequent years, to see if sides who win the trophy really do then improve as these players reach the first team. Obviously some clubs will sell or release more of a winning squad than others, and there are many many reasons why a player may or may not "make it" at the highest level - however, we can assume that most clubs will have at least the option to retain most of their Youth Cup winners in the following years. Therefore, if winning the Cup is worthwhile, we should see an improvement once these players are old enough to play for the club in the League.

This means that there are two questions we need to answer before we get into the statistics. Firstly, how long is the gap between winning the Youth Cup and players having a real effect on the first team? And secondly, how do we measure that effect?

Let's start with the first question, as it is perhaps easier to answer. All players in the Youth Cup must conform to under-18 rules. Those state that

Only those players are eligible to take part who have reached the age of 15 years by midnight on 31 August of the current season and not reached the age of 18 years as at midnight on 31 August of the current season. (For season 2013-2014, a player must have been born on or after 1 September 1995 and before 1 September 1998).

So most of the players involved will be 17 or 18 by the time they actually win the trophy, with the Final held toward the end of the season. Realistically, many will have already been involved in the first team, if only in competitions such as the League Cup or as unused squad players. But when are players going to be first team regulars?

Well, let's assume teams might hold on to youngsters up to age 21, playing in U21 competitions or loaned out to other clubs etc. It's rare to see players much over 21 kept at clubs if they don't have any first team involvement or prospects. So to be on the safe side, let's assume a Youth Cup winning side would start to really have an impact around 3 years after the trophy is won. If we apply this to an example, the 1992 United side, we can see that while players such as Ryan Giggs were already playing in first team, most established themselves around 1995.

Spot the professional footballer - three members of the 1992 United youth team
(By Øyvind Kvamme Vik (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.])

What about measuring performance? Well, it's a crude measure but we'll look at the club's performance in terms of league places, with any lower league seasons simply counted as 21st, 22nd etc. on the league ladder. So, we'll compare the season they won the Cup with 3 years later, 5 years later and 10 years later.

On to the statistics then. If you want to see the full list of figures, here you go (click to zoom):

So let's try and represent this in a clearer format. The graph below shows the average improvement (or otherwise) 3 years, 5 years and 10 years on from a Youth Cup win.

Pretty impressive! Clearly after 3 years, as players reach 20-21, they make a major positive impact on the team. But by 5 and 10 years later, the team actually tends to have gone backwards - maybe these players have been poached by other clubs, or those who stay are those who reach their peak too early in their career.

Or maybe the above is complete crap. You'll notice I didn't include any scale on that chart. In fact, if I had, you'd realise that all of the above figures are actually within just ONE positional place. Let's plot the changes on a scale between +10 and -10, e.g. a 20 team league.

Not so impressive. In fact, it could well be said that as we are talking about averages below 1, the perceived improvement/decrease is actually pretty much statistically irrelevant. And if we look at recent Youth Cup winning teams, it's easy enough to see why. Let's go back to 10 years ago and the 2004 Youth Cup. Of the 28 players involved, only 6 are current Premier League players, despite the fact that at 27/28 we would expect them to be in the prime of their careers. For the record, the 6 are James Morrison, Andrew Taylor and Adam Johnson from winners Middlesborough, and Craig Gardner, Gary Cahill and Gabriel Agbonlahor from runners up Aston Villa.

Not a single player from the victorious Ipswich Town squad in 2005 still plays top-flight football, although runners-up Southampton did have Theo Walcott, Nathan Dyer and Adam Lallana in their starting 11 - and a Welsh left-back named Gareth Bale on the bench. Wonder what happened to him?

In fact, the only players currently involved in first team football who have a FA Youth Cup winners medal since 2005 are Norwich's Josh Murphy, Spurs' Zeki Fryers, Man City's Dedryck Boyata and - the only real first-team regular - Arsenal's Jack Wilshire. Perhaps the real question isn't whether the Youth Cup predicts success, but rather whether it shows something a lot more worrying about youth development in English football.