Everton sign 7 year-old Harry Yates – is this too young?
Everton have beaten off competition from Manchester United and Liverpool to secure the signing of a seven-year-old goalkeeper. Harry Yates will join up with Everton after being spotted playing for his junior side.
After much interest from a number of teams, including Manchester United and Liverpool, his parents decided the young goalkeeper from Heaton Mersey in Stockport, will be given the best care at Everton.
Harry’s father Phil, himself a former goalie, reckons it was only a matter of time.
“He has no other real hobbies – it really is his number one passion,” he said. “We even had to get him soft balls because we can’t stop him kicking around inside, so bang go the ornaments and glassware.”
Harry also practices every day with the half-sized nets that have been put up in his back garden.
The potential young star will practice on the same field as the first team at their Finch Lane facility in Halewood, Cheshire.
“He’s not stopped talking about it and says he has butterflies in his tummy,” said Phil, “He is old enough to understand what a big thing it is but his mother and I have kept his feet on the ground.”
“He also knows he can be dropped just as easily if the effort flags but it will be a fantastic experience.” Harry’s mum Julia added: “Our biggest concern is that he enjoys his journey.”
I wrote recently about the trials and tribulations I have suffered being the father of a talented young player, but to start all that at the age of seven?!
When I first read the news I wasn’t entirely sure what I felt about it. I’m all for finding and developing young talent, but seven years-old just seems too young and vaguely wrong somehow.
I am in no way criticising Harry or his parents and I wish them the very best of luck. They seem really sensible and are doing what almost any parents would do in the same situation.
If I am criticising anything, it is the football world and society in general. Surely seven years old is too young for any football clubs to be ‘pursuing’ anyone.
I have a friend of a friend who has had a son at Bristol Rovers since the age of nine. Now, at seventeen, the boy has been released. That is an awful situation for the boy. Eight years of dreaming of being a professional footballer and playing for his local professional side, and then gone. It’s all over.
I know from personal experience that on that dreaded day when you are told, “Sorry son, you’re not going to make it,” the lives of the children and parents change forever. Imagine this family at Bristol Rovers. At least twice a week for eight years the boy has met up with and trained with his mates. The Dad, if he was anything like me, will have formed great frienships with the other parents at the club. So when the child is released by the club, not only are dreams shattered, your whole life changes as well.
You walk in one door to speak to the Academy director and walk out the other with a different life. It is a massive moment and one that needs to be managed carefully if it isn’t to have a psychological effect on all concerned.
I can’t speak for Everton, but in the case of most professional clubs it is a case of “Goodbye and thanks for coming” when they release a young player. As far as they are concerned that is the end of their involvement with the young person, and it is left to the parents to pick up the pieces.
That is what worries me about young Harry. He might turn out to be the next Neville Southall or Tim Howard, but that is still a one in a million chance. So many things could go wrong. He might not grow big enough for example. I have another friend who is the father of a very talented goalkeeper. He was at Bournemouth for a while but he stopped growing at around 5′8″. It doesn’t matter how talented he is, at that size he will never go beyond semi-pro football.
The boy might just not develop enough to make it. I hope he does, but although Harry’s father talks about keeping ‘his feet on the ground’ the dreams are already beginning. To Everton, Harry will just be another kid on the production line. To Harry and his parents this is their life. They must start to prepare for possible disappointment because Harry could go all the way to sixteen or seventeen years old and then be discarded. Everton won’t care because they’ll have other young keepers that they think are better.
I don’t want to sound like the ‘Grinch’ and I don’t want to spoil anyones ambitions or dreams, but I do fear for the psychological well being of kids who are handed the dream at such a young age.
Hat tip to Soccerlens’ own Steve Amoia for first alerting me to the above news.
As an Everton Fan and a Father,
I Simply think that 12 never mind 7 is too young.
I wish young Harry all the best but surely professional clubs should not be allowed to Cradle Snatch like this.
Change the rules and ban the practie.
If Harry is showing his ability in his early teens – sign him up.
Just picture all the other little 8 and 9 year olds who believe their dream is over and they are now on the scrap heap.
Shame !
“He was at Bournemouth for a while but he stopped growing at around 5′8″. It doesn’t matter how talented he is, at that size he will never go beyond semi-pro football.”
Jorge Campos is one of the most famous international Goalkeepers of recent years. He played for mexico 130 times many times as captain. He is also very famous for having scored 11 goals at club level. All at a height of 5ft 6″
wow a new low on everton besides showing us wayne rooney and other characters, byt 7 years old, go to a a third world country and get a 20 year old goal keeper that can be trained better than him, his little ego must be over the bar…
As a goalkeeper, this kind of stuff I don’t agree with. Who actually knows that they’re going to be a goalkeeper for their entire career when they’re seven? Who actually knows that this is what they want at age seven?
Personally, I used to cry when I was put in goal at that age. Until I was ten, I was terrified of playing between the sticks. But then something clicked and it grew on me. I just recently decided that I want to pursue a career in football, and I’m almost 18. I played in the field at least half the time until I was 14.
I think it’s important for development to allow keepers to play in the field until they’re at least 14. That and at such a young age, is it really the player’s signature on the contract and his dreams that are being pursued, or is it his parents’ dream that is being pursued?
I think its good to see keepers at such a young age. It shows that the future of english football is good with kids playing at this age.
And what if he doesn’t want to play football in a couple of years?
But overall, i think its good to see kids at young ages like harry when people slag off the england team saying we have no upcoming talent.
As someone in the States with some experience of being recruited (for collegiate lacrosse) at a young age, and of working with youngsters who have similar dreams of playing professional hockey and baseball when they get older, it’s definitely interesting to see the differing experiences across the pond. In these sports in North America, you don’t get the right to draft players until at least high school age, and several of the major sports leagues have restrictions on the age a player must be, whether or not he’s reached college, whether he’s still eligible to play at the collegiate level, which are almost development leagues in their own right. Here, students work very hard, spending their own time and money, for the eventual, not-guaranteed-at-all hope that they *might* get drafted and become property of a major league sports team – a status which carries the same situation as young Harry Yates here. There’s no guarantee they’ll ever “make it”. Yet so many young people struggle on, well into their adult years, for that one glimmer of hope. Is one situation any better, or worse, than the other? Is being selected at such a young age a benefit or detriment if a young person is dedicated to the sport? I don’t know.
Marcus, goalkeepers play with their feet more than they do with their hands. Therefore, it is a detriment to his development to limit him to playing only in goal at such a young age. There will be a right time to specialize, but seven years old is far from it.
The point to all the grabbing of kids who can play a little is the terror clubs feel at loosing out on the next Ronaldo or Rooney. No-one knows if a player is going to make it until he is 15 (generally) so they train them from as young as possible. The trouble is the age is getting younger and younger (I heard Liverpool were going around the maternity wards)plus you look at ‘You Tude’ every kid who can kick a ball 10 yards is put on it by a parent as the next Pele.
The FA has to put an age restriction on academies to around aged 10. I heard of a little boy aged 7 who could not play 2 years above his age and was not invited back..rejected at 7!!!