In a return to writing for the site, Nick Saunders Smith (@argyle_analyst on Twitter/Bluesky) takes a deep dive into Plymouth Argyle’s young player development, specifically regarding the contract situation of promising winger Tegan Finn. Nick also explains the intricacies around player compensation and advocates for the Foulston Park development.
Tegan Finn: 17 year-old’s contract situation explained
On 17th March, Tegan Finn turned 17, the youngest age a player can sign a professional contract, which makes it an extra special occasion for some players.
It’s the age at which current young-professionals Freddie Issaka, Caleb Roberts, and Will Jenkins-Davies signed their first professional deals, the same as many before them.
It falls during the first of a player’s two-year apprenticeship. While most have to wait until the end of their second season to find out if they’re going to be offered professional terms at a club, the most talented tend to be offered a contract long before then. Tegan Finn, the current poster boy of the academy, would normally fill that criteria.
However, Monday, 17th March came and went without any announcement about a professional deal, nor even a happy birthday message alongside those given to Ryan Hardie and Brendan Galloway.
Fan and media rumours have abounded for a while now that Finn will depart Argyle without signing professional terms, but there is a lot of confusion about when that could happen, how much Argyle would make from any transfer, why Finn might want to leave, and whether the Foulston Park project would reduce the likelihood of talented prospects looking to leave the club in future.
Who is Tegan Finn?
Roll back a year, and only a small fraction of the fanbase had even heard the name. An under-16, Finn had yet to even become an apprentice but was already making a name for themselves with the under-18s.
12 goals and 6 assists from 26 starts during the 2023/24 season made Finn a vital part of the attack that won a South West Youth Alliance and Merit League 1 double last season.
Left-footed, cutting in from the right wing, Finn was first-choice as part of the attacking trio with then first-year apprentice Joe Hatch (14 goals and 8 assists from 27 starts) and second-year Freddie Issaka (17 goals and 3 assists from 17 starts).
Finn’s stock rose as Wayne Rooney singled the young attacker out in pre-season, who joined up with the first team for the trip to Spain amid public praise, but injuries ruled them out for most of July, August, and September.
A debut opportunity came during the autumn injury crisis as Finn came off the bench against Leeds, following it up with a start on boxing day at Coventry as Argyle’s attacking options were stretched thin.
Since the arrival of Miron Muslic, Finn has only been named in the matchday squad once – against Burnley – and the late, eight-minute cameo in that 5-0 loss represented the only minutes any recent academy graduates have made under the Austrian (until Issaka’s late appearances) as Argyle fight relegation.
Have Plymouth Argyle offered Tegan Finn a professional contract?
Argyle have almost certainly offered Finn a contract, probably with a signing-on bonus too, given the interest around the player. However, there has been no public confirmation of a contract offer, so we can’t know for certain.
When recently asked by Chris Errington, Muslic responded: “He’s the future of the club. He turned 17, I think now legally we can offer him a contract and we will try to do this to keep this young player at Argyle.”
In spite of this answer, most likely the current state of affairs is that Finn was offered a professional contract by Argyle months ago but has yet to accept it. At the very least, we’ve surely offered one since.
A small sidenote, as Finn is under 18, the club cannot legally offer a contract longer than three years. In the case of Freddie Issaka and Caleb Roberts, both signed an initial contract on their 17th birthdays before extending them a year later.
Can Tegan Finn sign a professional contract with another club?
There were a few posts on different social media channels from accounts purporting to have information that Finn would sign a contract with a Premier League side on their birthday, but no such announcement has been made yet.
This topic isn’t totally clear, as youth transfers don’t occur that often and articles on them are more focused on the players and the amounts than the specific legalities of their contract situation. However, my understanding is that Finn cannot simply sign a professional deal elsewhere and immediately depart.
As an apprentice, Finn has in effect signed a two-year contract of employment with Argyle and cannot simply leave the club mid-contract. To leave, Argyle would have to release Finn or agree a fee to sell the player.
https://x.com/argyle_analyst/status/1901588333823676666
When could Tegan Finn leave Argyle?
Assuming the above is correct, if Finn is looking to leave then the earliest a transfer could happen is as soon as a buying club agrees a fee with Argyle and personal terms with the player.
That agreement can happen outside the transfer window. First-team players cannot be registered outside the summer and winter windows, but players can move academies. It would mean that Finn could immediately play under-18 or under-21 football for any club, but not their first team until the beginning of the next transfer window.
If Argyle did not agree a fee with another club, Finn would have to wait until the end of their apprenticeship in June 2026 before signing for another club as a free agent. Presumably Finn would be able to sign a pre-contract agreement with another foreign club in the six months before then, from January 2026, but no earlier, in line with current transfer rules. Any English club would likely need to wait until the summer of 2026.
However, information about footballing apprenticeships isn’t easy to come by and, given they’re not the same as professional football contracts, it’s possible that they contain notice periods like regular employment contracts.
Yet, interest around Finn has been there for months, as probably has been Argyle’s contract offer. Were it as simple as working off a notice period, it’s likely that a transfer would be complete by now.
Regardless, even were a player able to hand in their notice and join another club, the fact Finn hasn’t points to another barrier to departing Argyle: transfer fees.
How much could Argyle make from selling Tegan Finn?
Obviously, if Argyle agree a fee then the club will be able to negotiate a price for their player. However, if no fee is agreed and Finn departs despite a contract offer being on the table, the club will be entitled to compensation set at a tribunal.
One of the biggest fears among Argyle fans talking about this topic is that a tribunal would award Argyle pennies for a player potentially worth millions. A lot of confusion regarding this surrounds the academy player compensation table.
https://x.com/argyle_analyst/status/1901588327020589230
That table suggests the maximum initial fee Argyle could receive for Tegan Finn would be £132,500, as well as a 20% sell-on fee and a maximum of £1.3m if Finn made 100 Premier League appearances.
However, this table isn’t relevant to Finn, as it “govern[s] the compensation due in respect of an Academy Player who is in any age group between Under 9 and Under 16” when they move academies (rule 277 of the Premier League and EFL’s Youth Development Rules).
Instead, the “Professional Football Compensation Committee (PCCC) shall determine the compensation payable” for any player “who is in any age group between Under 17 and Under 21” or “with whom the training Club has agreed … to enter into a Scholarship Agreement” (rule 278).
That is to say, once a player becomes an apprentice, or is offered an apprenticeship (also known as a scholarship), the compensation is no longer guided by that table and instead goes to a separate compensation committee.
Just take the cases of Harvey Elliott and Ethan Ampadu. Both were 16-year-olds when they moved to Liverpool and Chelsea respectively. Both had made their professional debuts for Fulham and Exeter and were offered apprenticeships by their respective clubs with an eye to signing them to a professional contract the following season once each turned 17.
However, because they were technically out of contract, each was able to move clubs before the start of the season.
Even though neither Elliott nor Ampadu was offered a professional deal nor signed the scholarship agreement offered by either club, the transfer fees were not governed by the above table but instead the PCCC. In Ampadu’s case, Chelsea were instructed to pay an initial £1.3m, with potential for an additional £1.25m based on Premier League appearances plus a 20% sell-on. Elliott’s initial fee was £1.5m rising to £4.3m, plus a 20% sell-on.
Finn, of course, is a contracted apprentice who has been offered a professional deal, so the legalities are even more clear: any club who signs Finn must either agree a transfer fee with Argyle or risk going to tribunal, as with any free-agent transfer for a player under 23 who rejected a contract from their ex-club. Even in the latter case, they may need to wait for the contract to expire in 2026 – though this is one area where, as mentioned in the previous section, we cannot be entirely certain.
It’s not clear how much Argyle could expect to get, but based on age and appearances, an initial mid-to-high six-figure fee with add-ons and sell-ons taking the total figure into the millions would be likely. Certainly, far higher than the low figure being incorrectly mooted.
Why would Tegan Finn want to leave Plymouth Argyle?
Firstly, we don’t know that Finn does want to leave. Rumours are rife, but we don’t even know for certain that Argyle have offered Finn a contract yet. Though, again, the club almost certainly have, which means Finn has almost certainly rejected that contract offer, for now at least.
That begs the question: if so, why?
Well, player development would be the most likely cause. The long and short of it is that Plymouth Argyle has a player-development problem. In the past decade, only three players have graduated from the academy and played 1,000 league minutes for the club: Michael Cooper, Luke Jephcott, and Adam Randell.
With nearly 600 league minutes, Issaka looks likely to be the next player reach that milestone. Those four players aside, Argyle have given professional contracts to 34 academy graduates since May 2014 who have collectively played 2,071 league minutes, an average of 69 per-player. Together, Ryan Law (776) and Alex Fletcher (397) account for over half of those minutes. 16 graduates – virtually half – never even played a minute of league football.
https://bsky.app/profile/argyleanalyst.bsky.social/post/3lip6hn2dls2p
Even some of those identified as the most talented, signing a contract on their 17th birthdays, haven’t fared well:
- Will Jenkins-Davies: handed a two-year contract aged 17, has played only 17 league minutes for Argyle, given a single-year contract extension last summer at the end of their initial two-year contract, now 20 and with their contract set to expire in June.
- Brandon Pursall: handed a two-year contract aged 17, played 0 league minutes and was released aged 19.
- Oscar Halls: handed a eighteen-month contract aged 17, played 0 league minutes and was released aged 18.
Also playing on Finn’s mind could be Harry McGlinchey. From the same age cohort as Finn, McGlinchey left Argyle’s academy for Chelsea as an under-14. They signed their first professional contract with the Blues on their 17th birthday last December, have made their debut for the U21 side, and have been capped at U19 level for the Republic of Ireland.
Is Argyle academy failing to create quality young prospects?
All of which raises a separate question: is part of the problem that Argyle’s academy isn’t producing good enough players? Simple answer: No.
Though the academy was hit hard by the club’s administration, ex-Director of Football Neil Dewsnip oversaw a quite remarkable turnaround in its fortunes.
Back in November 2019, Argyle were near the bottom of the South West Youth Alliance, the league in which Category 3 academies like Argyle’s competes against predominantly lower-league academies like Swindon, Newport, Forest Green, Cheltenham, and (at the time) Yeovil.
The U18s had 12 points from 12 games, were set for a third consecutive bottom-half finish, and were out of the FA Youth Cup in the first round for the fourth time in six seasons.
Drastic action was taken. Kevin Hodges, Argyle legend and ex-manager, left as Academy Director. The role was split between incoming U18 manager Darren Way, who took over management of the apprentices, and Dewsnip, who arrived with decades of experience in academy football at Premier League and international level and would look after academy strategy. Way has since left to be replaced by Jamie Lowry.
The improvement is easy to spot. Argyle average 2.04 points per game since 2021/22, up on 1.17 from the four seasons prior to Dewsnip’s arrival. Last season, after losing out twice to Bournemouth on the final day in successive seasons (who have since become a Cat 2 academy), Argyle finally won their first Youth Alliance title since 2016. Argyle also won two Merit League 1 titles in the past three seasons, for the first times.
https://x.com/argyle_analyst/status/1832724622808142042
This season, Argyle reached the quarter final the FA Youth Cup for the first time since 2008 before being knocked out at Villa Park. That means that, in three of the past four years, it has taken Category 1 academies – the cream of the crop – to knock Argyle out of the competition, following narrow 2-1 home defeats against Brighton and Crystal Palace.
Along the way, in beating Everton 1-0, Argyle recorded their first ever away victory over a Cat 1 academy, only their second ever (home or away), and first without requiring penalties.
Having reversed the long-term damage of administration-induced budget cutting, Argyle now have an academy pumping out talented players with huge potential year after year.
However, the absence of an U21 side at Argyle is the big reason for the club is currently struggling to progress these talented academy graduates into the first team.
Every Premier League side, all but five Championship sides (Argyle, Luton, Oxford, Preston and Portsmouth), six League 1 sides and three League 2 sides have Cat 1 or Cat 2 status and qualify to enter a side into an U21 competition. Seven additional sides enter a team into a reserve league. That accounts for nearly two-thirds of the entire Premier League and EFL.
In fact, no club in England has a higher turnover than Argyle but lacks an U21 team.
In an era when English academies are fine-tuning the art of pumping out academy graduates ready for the first team or to be sold for a high fee, Argyle are lagging well behind.
Why are U21 teams so effective at progressing academy graduates?
Under the Elite Player Performance Plan, the framework approved in 2011 which has revolutionised player development nationwide and bequeathed some of the world’s best players to the England national team, three phases of player development are identified:
- Foundation phase (U9 to U11)
- Youth Development phase (U12 to U16)
- Professional Development phase (U17 to U23)
The final phase is by far the hardest, hence why so few players who have progressed through the first two make it past the third after having been part of an academy set-up for nearly a decade.
The issue is the massive step up from academy to professional football. The game is far faster, far more physical, and far more demanding. Defeats are tolerable in the academy so long as players are progressing, but senior football is a results business.
You need to be a very special talent to be immediately ready to step-up from playing against 16-, 17-, and 18-year-olds to facing off against Championship opposition. Despite signing professional contracts by the age of 18, most graduates don’t break into their first team before the age of 21.
Just take Michael Cooper, a third-year pro in 2020/21 aged 21, or Adam Randell, a fourth-year pro in 2022/23 aged 22, when they became regular starters. Prior to that, they made a combined eight league starts.
From academy to the first-team, U21 football acts as an intermediary, helping to bridge the gap. A source of guaranteed gametime for academy graduates at a vital point in their development when they’re not ready for professional football.
Just take the following list of recent Championship academy graduates who’ve become first-team regulars: Jonathan Rowe; Ryan Andrews; Anthony Patterson; Rubin Colwill; Tommy Conway; Dan Neil; Hayden Hackney. Collectively, they’re worth tens of millions.
They played U21 football almost exclusively before and after turning professional until they made their first-team breakthrough. Andrews, Colwill, and Neil broke into their respective first teams as second-year pros. Conway, Hackney, and Rowe in their third years, and Patterson the fourth.
What about loaning players out?
For some fans, loan opportunities should be used to fill gap in lieu of an U21 team, however it’s not as simple as that.
Loaning a first- or second-year pro out invariably means sending a player to a side with fewer backroom staff and worse facilities, potentially playing a different style of play, where the loanee is not guaranteed gametime, and the manager, squad or playing style might drastically change mid-season. Especially for Argyle, the player might also be very far from home at a young age, which could have a detrimental effect.
Using an U21 side provides a club with a lot more control: guaranteed gametime, stability in coaching staff, facilities, teammates, tactics, and location.
Just take those previously mentioned players: they all made their way into the Championship via U21 teams, not climbing the rungs of the EFL in various loan spells. Between the seven of them, they started just 40 games out on loan. 20 in non-league, 20 in League Two.
None of these players established themselves as the best young talents in Leagues One or Two. No, these players spent between two-to-four years playing in their U21 sides as they evolved from talented graduate into first choice.
What’s just as important though is it’s hard to get 18- and 19-year-olds a good loan opportunity. After all, why would a League One or Two side loan an 18-year-old from Argyle, untested above academy football, when there are so many available players who have proved themselves playing at an U21 level against higher-category academies?
And if that player can’t get a good loan move aged 18, and Argyle can’t afford to give them gametime in their first season as a pro, what chance do they have of a good loan option aged 19?
Contrast that with the example of Nathan Lowe, whose name you might have heard of this season. Just 18 years old at the start of the season, like Issaka, Lowe went out on loan to League Two Walsall in the summer and scored 18 goals before being recalled by Stoke in January.
The difference? One has been playing U21 football against Cat 1 academies from the age of 16, the other has been playing U18 football against Cat 3 opposition.
Lowe is a prime example of how our Championship rivals are using U21 to succeed in the Professional Development phase and developing develop fitter, stronger, better academy graduates at a younger age.
There’s a reason the likes of Lewis Gibson, Finn Azaz, Morgan Whittaker, Bali Mumba, to name just a few, all were able to secure League One loan opportunities on the way to seven-figure Championship transfers aged 23 or under. All four played U21 football before and after turning 18.
The choice facing Tegan Finn is to stay at Argyle and probably play football against Cat 3 apprentices next season with no guarantee of an U21 side being launched the season after, when they’re too old to play for the U18s, or to force a move to a Cat 1/2 academy this summer and play U21 football from next season. To continue playing against opponents Finn has proved to be far too good for or test themselves against better academies at a higher age group.
Why don’t Plymouth Argyle have an U21 team?
The answer is simple: there aren’t enough games to justify it currently.
Argyle launched a reserve team as recently as 2018 and it remained in place until 2020 when Covid hit. For two years, Argyle’s reserves played in the Central League and U23 Premier League Cup, as well as the South West Peninsula League.
It meant that the reserves had a busy schedule: 13 Central League games, a minimum of 6 PLC games, plus 36 SWPL matches (that were against lower quality opposition but were good for building strength and stamina).
However, the season ended prematurely in 2020 after the outbreak of the pandemic and during the 2020/21 Covid season there was no Central League, nor an U23 Premier League Cup, and Argyle had already withdrawn from the SWPL.
By 2021/22, the U23 PLC relaunched but the Central League ceased to run in the south of England due to insufficient interest. So, Argyle scrapped the reserve side. Six games simply weren’t enough for a season to make it worthwhile.
Not so coincidentally, those years in which Argyle had a reserve team perfectly align with the age cohorts that Argyle were most successful at converting into first-team players.
https://bsky.app/profile/argyleanalyst.bsky.social/post/3lip6hn2dls2p
Cooper made 53 apps for the reserve team as a first- and second-year pro. In fact, as a second-year pro during the 2019/20 season, Cooper was in the first team squad for every single game yet ‘still started three-quarters of reserve games, a great example of the benefit of regular gametime for first-team squad members who aren’t getting on the pitch.
Jephcott made 60 appearances for the reserve team as an apprentice and pro. Law made 75, Randell 49, Klaidi Lolos 31. It’s important to note that Randell and Lolos would have made far more appearances, had Covid not shut the reserve team down from March 2020.
Without the return of the Central League South, the only way for Argyle to guarantee sufficient gametime to justify an U21 side in future would be to qualify for one of the two nationwide U21 leagues: the U21 Professional Development League for Category 2 academies or the Premier League 2 for Category 1 academies.
However, that requires Argyle achieving Cat 2 status or higher. To achieve this, Argyle require Foulston Park.
Foulston Park: Argyle’s route to a Category 2 Academy
In order to meet Cat 2 status, you need to pass an audit. That requires certain investments in staff and infrastructure, including a permanent location for your academy with classrooms and an indoor pitch.
Currently, Argyle meet none of those infrastructure requirements. The academy has never had a permanent base and the age cohorts play on a range of booked pitches across Devon and Cornwall depending on availability.
Foulston Park will change all of that. Upon completion, not only will it improve the quality of coaching the club can provide for its academy players, but it will also provide all the necessary infrastructure for Argyle to be reclassified as a Cat 2 academy.
https://x.com/argyle_analyst/status/1837089705378095269
Becoming Cat 2 would make Argyle the only such academy in Devon and Cornwall, and just the third in South West England after Bristol City and Bournemouth. That status is an incentive for talented children to choose Argyle’s academy over our rivals.
Further, the range over which Argyle are allowed to recruit children to the academy grows, enabling the club to cast a wider net.
Alongside that, the central funding that Argyle’s academy receives would increase, while the club would be entitled to greater compensation if U16 players are poached by other academies.
Most important, though, is that Argyle’s academy would qualify to play in the Professional Development League. Not only does that mean our U18s would be able to play against tougher opposition, but it also means the club can join their U21 league for Cat 2 academies.
Do Argyle intent to launch an U21 side?
Since the announcement of the Foulston Park project, Argyle have repeatedly noted their intentions to become a Cat 2 academy upon completion of the project but have said nothing specifically about launching an U21 side when that is achieved.
At the recent fans’ forum, Simon Hallett and CEO Andrew Parkinson were asked the question about launching an U21 team.
Parkinson’s response was disappointingly non-committal: “There are plusses and minuses with having an U21 team … I think we have been able to see the benefits of having a Michael Cooper come into the team, Adam Randell having that connection with the first team, as opposed to being in and around an U21 team”.
As noted, both Cooper and Randell are actually excellent examples of the benefits of an U21 team in progressing talented academy graduates into first-team ready players.
However, Parkinson ultimately concluded that the decision would be made by the incoming, yet-to-be-announced Sporting Director who will replace Neil Dewsnip.
When could Argyle launch an U21 side?
The earliest Plymouth Argyle could launch an U21 side would be the start of a new season subsequent to being recategorized as a Cat 2 academy. The earliest Argyle could be recategorized would come after the completion of the Foulston Park project.
The new academy facilities at Foulston Park were originally intended to be completed by September 2025, but that has since been revised back to summer 2026.
Assuming the works finish on schedule and academy audit could be completed before the start of the 2026/27 season, then the earliest Argyle could launch an U21 side would be then. If the audit did not take place until late in the summer, then the launch date would presumably be pushed back to the 2027/28 season.
That would mean that the first cohort likely to be able to benefit from an U21 side, if the club decide to launch one, would be one of the current U15, U16, or U17 cohorts.
Can Argyle afford an U21 side?
Yes. Categorically yes.
There’s a reason that League Two teams like Crewe, Colchester, and Fleetwood can afford U21 teams. There’s a reason that Argyle could afford a nine-player reserve team back when our turnover was only about £6m. The combined revenue from the Grandstand’s hospitality suites and Argyle TV alone currently makes more than the club did back then.
Relatively speaking, most U21 players have very cheap contracts. If they don’t sign with Argyle, then a few can get U21 contracts elsewhere, as happened to the last two cohorts, but most would otherwise be consigned to part-time, non-league football and the rest would see their footballing careers come to an end.
Of course, the most talented will demand higher wages, but those are the players that were being offered contracts anyway.
So, how much does it cost to run an U21 side? Well, there’s obviously a short-term cost. You need enough players to fulfil the fixture list, and that requires retaining around 9 at a minimum.
Fleetwood have 8 U21 players, Peterborough 9, Colchester 10, Barnsley and Wigan 13, Charlton and Hull 14. Of course, most of the Championship sides have far bigger U21 teams, around 18-20. Bristol City have 23, 8 of which are out on loan.
However, you don’t need a huge U21 squad to fulfil the fixtures. Argyle’s 2018/19 reserve squad was made up of just nine players and they fulfilled 60 games that season. The rest of the squad was made up of first-team players who needed gametime or were returning from injury and promising academy players ready for the step up, like Randell and Lolos.
Argyle already have six U21 players contracted to the club: Zak Baker, Jack Matthews, Josh Bernard, Roberts, Jenkins-Davies, and Issaka. The club had six U21s contracted last season, too. All Argyle would need do is grow that by another 3-5 players to have a squad big enough for an U21 side, a minor expense set against the current footballing budget.
However, you shouldn’t see an U21 team as a financial liability. It’s actually an asset. A massive financial asset.
For the relatively cheap cost of running the academy, remembering that it’s part-subsidised by the Premier League and EFL, there are huge profits to be made from selling players.
Since Bristol City achieved Cat 2 status, they’ve made over £50m from selling academy graduates. More recently Peterborough launched theirs in 2021 and have already made over £5m from graduates, more than Argyle have in the past two decades.
That is a massive amount of potential transfer revenue that Argyle are missing out on. In the sixteen intervening years between Dan Gosling’s Everton transfer and the sale of Cooper to Sheffield, Argyle made just £2m from academy graduates.
https://x.com/argyle_analyst/status/1832724670157656286
Yes, Cooper went for a smaller fee than we’d wanted, given the expiring contract and recent injury record. However, with the fee rising to £4m after promotion to the Premier League (hopefully next month), that would be Argyle’s second highest transfer of all time, with potential for that to grow further if the sell-on clause is activated.
So, yes, there would be a short-term cost to retaining more graduates to fill out the U21 team, but it should be viewed as any other investment. Just as we invested £10m+ to profitably redevelop the Grandstand, we would be investing a far smaller sum to cover the funding for an U21 side that should, in the long-term, make a huge profit.
That’s before you factor in the other financial benefit of an effective pipeline of academy players: saved transfer fees and wages. Just consider how much it would have cost us to sign Cooper in 2021, 2022, or 2023. We’d have never been able to afford the transfer. Further, with big transfer fees inevitably come big wage packages. Academy graduates who break into the first team inevitably cost far less in wages initially.
Further, there’s less of a need for a big squad. When injuries hit, you have a core of U21 players ready to step up, rather than untested 18- and 19-year-olds who have barely played since graduating the academy, as has been the case this season.
More graduates retained: Adam Randell’s academy story
That’s another perk to an U21 team: clubs can retain a greater number of academy players with the potential to break into the first team. After all, player development is a numbers game.
Not every player develops at the same rate. Sometimes, your most talented prospects just can’t cut it at higher age groups. Sometimes, talented players develop physically at later stages. Sometimes, those who are less obviously talented but are the hardest workers succeed through pure perseverance.
Retaining more players thus allows you to test more at U21 level before having to make the ultimate decision about who can make it in the first team.
Just take the case of Adam Randell.
It might surprise you to find out that, unlike Cooper the year before, Randell wasn’t the leading light of the 2019 cohort. No, Randell was seemingly well down the pecking order at the start of the 2018/19 season.
https://x.com/argyle_analyst/status/1876971505470378158
Up to 2015, Argyle tended to offer professional contracts to just two academy players every year. Had that been the case, Randell would have most likely been released, as Tom Purrington and Lolos would have surely been the two selected.
Yet, after Argyle entered the SWPL, five apprentices were offered contracts in 2016. After joining the Central League the next season, six were offered contracts in 2017. Another five in 2018, and then four in 2019, including Randell.
Then, with the arrival of Ryan Lowe, the style of football changed. Lowe saw how Randell could fit as the pivot in the 3-1-4-2 and captained Argyle in the first game of this new era, a friendly at Truro.
Save for a couple of starts in the JPT, Randell barely featured in his first season, but we all know what happened after that: success at Torquay, squad player in the play-off chase, title winner, Championship regular, infrequent wearer of the captain’s armband. One of our own.
Had Argyle not changed its Professional Development strategy, Randell would have most likely been released aged 18, never getting a professional contract.
Even had Randell got lucky and been offered a contract, would the same path have presented itself? Would Torquay have loaned Randell without those 50 reserve appearances by the age of 19? Most likely, Randell’s path would have been no different to almost every other academy graduate before 2018 and after 2020: released after 1-2 years.
Imagine how different Argyle’s recent history would look. Do Argyle win promotion to the Championship without Randell?
Foulston Park: Plymouth Argyle’s future
All of which explains why Foulston Park is so important to Argyle’s future. Argyle have already created an academy structure that is producing a consistent stream of high-quality U18 prospects from across Devon, Cornwall, and beyond – a structure that can only benefit from the improved resources provided by Foulston Park.
Cat 2 status, compared to Exeter’s Cat 3, would help when competing to recruit talented players, as would being able to recruit from a wider geographical area. Of course, there’s also the extra funding and compensation.
The real benefit, though, is being able to relaunch the U21 team. That missing step between Youth Development and Professional Development that so many talented players are currently falling through at Argyle.
An U21 side helps you develop fitter, stronger, better players at a younger age. It accelerates player development for U18s and prevents it from stalling after graduating the academy. It helps you retain your most talented prospects by offering a more reliable route into the first team.
It’s the missing puzzle piece that fits perfectly within Argyle’s strategic vision. A club at the heart of its community, sustainably run, utilising youth development and sales to level the financial playing field.
That is why Foulston Park is so important. An £11m investment that will generate tens of millions in profit in the future.
That’s why Foulston Park is the future of Plymouth Argyle.