It is the contest between the two clubs who have perhaps done more than anybody else in English football to promote, as the song goes, “One of our own.”
When Manchester United meet Nottingham Forest at Old Trafford tomorrow, it pitches one club that has included at least one youth-team player in every first-team squad since 1937 against another whose own proud record dates back to 1941.
United’s record, in particular, deserves recognition as one of the sport’s more remarkable statistics, given that it stretches over 87 years and 4,262 games.
“The beauty of that statistic is that it happened organically,” says Nick Cox, United’s academy director. “It’s never been forced, it’s not a gimmick, it’s not a PR stunt. It’s just a byproduct of the way we do things here. The club is incredibly proud of its traditions of youth development. And the fans expect to see young, local players in the first team because youth has been a consistent part of our history, including our darkest days.
“It was youth development that helped us survive World War Two. Youth was there to help us recover from the Munich disaster (in 1958). And youth has been at the heart of our best days as well, winning league titles and European Cups with a core of young players.”
A visiting Real Betis fan photographs himself in front of the ‘Class of 92’ picture outside Old Trafford (Darren Staples/AFP via Getty Images)
Forest, meanwhile, have put together a run of 4,080 games – encompassing 31 changes of manager (not including caretakers) and roughly 850 players – in which at least one homegrown player, or someone who joined them as their first professional club, has been part of their matchday squad.
But that run is looking vulnerable. The sales of Brennan Johnson and Joe Worrall in recent years have left Ryan Yates as Forest’s only regular first-team player to come through their youth structure. That apart, 18-year-old Zach Abbott is the only homegrown player to feature for them this season, though not since a Carabao Cup tie at home to Newcastle United in August.
Yates has picked up four yellow cards across the 14 league fixtures so far this season. A fifth before the 19-game mark will mean an automatic one-match suspension. And that, potentially, could be that.
“It’s inevitable he will miss out sooner or later to a suspension or injury, so I’ve begrudgingly come around to accepting it,” says David Marples, the Forest fan, writer and author who helped to research the numbers in this article. “It would be lovely, truly wonderful, to see the run continue, but I’ve come to accept it’s going to end at some point this season.
“The romantic in me would love to think Forest would find a place for Abbott on the bench to keep it going. But this is modern football and fairytales are thin gruel.
“It’s the price to pay for being successful, isn’t it? The better the team is, the harder it is for young players to dislodge expensive signings.”
In case you missed it at the time, you can read the story here about how the author of this piece collaborated with Marples and Matt Oldroyd, founder of the Forest Preservation Society, to pull together the relevant data and what criteria were used. Forest, in turn, have said they are proud of the record and hope it can continue for much longer. Craig Mulholland, the club’s head of youth development and talent management, described it recently to The Athletic as “the Forest DNA.”
But what if Yates gets that fateful booking in the next five games?
“If we believe the record is important to keep, we have Abbott available to go on the bench,” Forest head coach Nuno Espirito Santo says. “It is not our priority, but we have that option. I understand the record but, if it happens (Yates being suspended), we will assess the options and the game we are playing.”
Speaking in October, Mulholland’s view was “that record will not end on our watch … Yatesy is flying the flag for us but should he get injured or suspended, we need to make sure there is somebody else.”
Forest’s academy has a well-earned reputation for quality (Courtesy of Nottingham Forest)
It is tricky, though. This is a results business and Nuno, working for a demanding owner in Evangelos Marinakis, could hardly be blamed if he preferred to pick his strongest squad for a key Premier League fixture. On the other hand, what a shame it would be to sacrifice an 83-year-old record that, in Oldroyd’s words, should be “a huge selling point” for the academy.
“Forest and United, over the course of their respective runs, have both experienced dramatic highs and dark periods, but the presence of young players has always been maintained,” says Oldroyd. “Great credit should be given to the vast amount of coaches and managers who put youth development at the forefront of their efforts.”
That applies to both clubs, whether it be the Busby Babes and Class of ’92 at Old Trafford or, at Forest, Billy Walker’s wartime Colts and former manager Brian Clough’s firmly-held belief, in common with United counterpart Sir Alex Ferguson, that a football club should promote its own.
The Athletic covered United’s run at the 4,000-game mark. The research was undertaken by Tony Park, the United fan, historian and author, and it is difficult at this stage to imagine a time when any manager there would break the sequence – or that the club would find themselves short of players who could keep it going.
Twelve academy graduates figured for United’s first team last season and two of them, Alejandro Garnacho and Kobbie Mainoo, scored the goals to overcome Manchester City in May’s FA Cup final. It was the club’s finest moment since Ferguson’s retirement as manager 11 years before and, in Cox’s words, a “lovely day for the academy staff to know they had supplied the goalscorers”.
Mainoo is one of the recent Manchester United academy graduates (Paul Ellis/AFP via Getty Images)
This season, the number is nine. The conveyor belt keeps rolling and the new first-team head coach, Ruben Amorim, called up 16-year-old Godwill Kukonki to join the travelling squad for his first match in charge at Ipswich Town two weekends ago.
“If you look at our new manager, he has a great record of working with young players,” says Cox. “That will have been part of the reason for his appointment, I’m sure.”
Some advocates for youth development believe it would be good for the sport, especially in this era of nine potential substitutes permitted on the bench, if individual clubs made it a stipulation for managers to include at least one homegrown player in every matchday squad.
Others believe that would create its own problems.“After all, we would all get jittery about an owner or chairman having a say in squad selection,” says Oldroyd. “Some fans might question why a young player should take the place of a more experienced and talented pro.”
What, though, if the Premier League imposed such a rule? “That’s a stronger idea,” says Oldroyd. “Let’s give these younger players a firm opportunity, because at Forest we have definitely seen the advantages it can bring.”
It is an interesting debate that is guaranteed to provoke different opinions. United’s Cox, for example, believes it should be for individual clubs to choose.
“I’ve heard the debate many times over the years,” he says. “I’m not sure, though, that a rule is the best way forward. Ultimately, we want the players to be in the squad because they are good enough, not because someone has told them they have to be in the squad.
“That’s the real challenge: how do you make sure you are preparing young players to take their opportunities? That’s a lot more powerful than forcing the hand of a club.”
The challenge is considerable if you recall how, in 2019, two of United’s academy graduates, Marcus Rashford and Jesse Lingard, both wrote “0.012%” on their Instagram accounts, referencing the percentage of players at organised youth levels who make it to the Premier League.
United’s history indicates they do it better than anyone, with almost 300 former youth-team players named in first-team squads, whereas their opponents this weekend can be proud of their achievements, too. Of the 14 players in Forest’s history to make more than 400 post-war appearances for the club, 11 started their careers beside the River Trent.
“We played in an FA Youth Cup final against Forest at Old Trafford three years ago and you could see what it meant to both clubs,” says Cox. “The stadium was full — the away end was full. I don’t think there are many clubs who could drag out a crowd of more than 60,000 for a youth game.”
(Top photos: Rashford, left, and Yates; Getty Images)
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