22 The Under 18 Competitions

Since the Manchester City football club was taken over in September 2008 by Sheikh Mansour , one of football's wealthiest owners , with an estimated individual net worth of at least £17 billion and a family fortune of at least $1 trillion.

With extra capital and increased ambitions the club looked to expand their successful team and academy further and also develop the Community programme in Manchester.

In 2010 the academy was upgraded to include new facilities, such as a gym, changing rooms, spas, as well as office and seminar space, etc.

The club also launched an instructional video website aimed at helping the new skills of the younger academy footballers.

The Academy develops talented young footballers from the age of eight to 23 years.

The Academy employs a large team of staff to identify, recruit, coach, develop and support over 200 talented young players.

The under 18 Team which Tony was part of participated in the Youth Fa cup and the Under 18 premier league. With the the overall winner from the North Group and South Group Under 18 premier league going on to play in the Uefa Youth league for the next season.

The Under-18 Premier League had the aim to enhance youth development and help transition players between the Academy and first team.

The 24-team Premier league is split into North and South Groups, and the two regional division champions will play in a national final for the U18 Premier League title. The one-off tie will be held at a neutral stadium. 

The 24 clubs of the Under 18 premier league were split lit into two regional groups, the North Group and the South Group.

Clubs will play each opposing team in their regional group twice, home and away.

The competition allowed a team sheet of 19 players. With a starting 11 and 8 substitute players, with the available use of 3 substitutes.

The teams in the Under 18 premier league North Group which Manchester City was a part of included the following:

Man City

Man Utd

Liverpool

Everton

Derby

Stoke City

Wolves

Boro

West Brom

Newcastle

Blackburn

Sunderland

Survival at an academy was really tough and even more brutal than in the first team. As it was in the academy that players were shaped, and there performances when they had a chance to play determined there fate.

As most positions in the Academy had up to about 4 who were available to play. So once a player makes too many mistakes, he could eventually find himself dropping in the pecking order.

The pecking order was a list of the best players to the worst players on each position. It showed which player the coaches had more faith or believed to be better than the others.

If the first player on the pecking order was not available or injured, it was the second that would usually play the match.

That was why the youth team coaches usually tried to train the players to be able to be consistent. Once they noticed a player starts making mistakes or being inconsistent, they could either talk to the player or drop them lower in the pecking order.

In some special cases, they could drop a player on the pecking order in an attempt to discipline him.

This kind of things happening, led to a serious atmosphere in the higher levels of the academy like the under 18s and the under 21s most especially. As most of the players in this teams where already adults and knew that needed to perform properly to be able to sign a professional contract or they would be booted out of the academy.

If a player was playing really well at the older academy levels, and there was a need for an emergency player or a squad player to act as back up on the first team. It was the older academy teams that would promote a player to fill the role, even if it was just temporarily.

When things in the club were going well that the first team manager could have enough free time and decide to come and evaluate the senior youth teams.

Or when things were really going poorly for the club, that change was needed. It could be a wave of injuries that is plaguing a particular position, a stream of bad form for most players of a particular position on the first team, a long run of bad results that leads to the manager needing a change when the transfer window is already closed or even a lack of money to sign players.

During such situations, it would be the player who was top of the pecking order from the older academy teams or reserves and who the coach had more faith in that he would recommend to fill the position on the first team.

This sort of scenarios, led to most players who had similar play styles or competed for the same starting position to not be close friends. As they would mostly have silent rivalries between themselves, to outplay and outperform their competitors during trainings or during matches.

Most of this rivalries where healthy, and eventually led some players to develop dramatically than what was projected. Only very few of such rivalries usually came to heated arguments or even escalated to the use of their fists.

In such situations where it came to exchange of blows, the coaching staffs would then take up disciplinary actions. The involved players would maybe suspended, fined or in extreme cases they could be expelled from the academy.

The future prospects of the club could also be loaned out to other teams of higher quality than that of the youth teams. Where the loaned out was expected to have a taste of harder competition to aid his development.