[ Written by Mitchell Bray ]
Medics may say this matchless weekend for Blues is good medicine.
No rapid pulses, no raised blood pressures and anxiety levels very calm. However it is not what the average Bluenose wants. Therefore we can switch our thoughts to others matters concerning our beloved club.
My own thinking is a question I keep asking myself is why the club is not producing any home grown centre forwards.
Midfielders arrive by the bus loads, wide players come in and are much the same and defenders similar-but no signs of a centre forward who has risen through the ranks.
This is not just Blues however,it affects most clubs, which is really surprising as most young kids dream of being the hero when they join a club as a youngster. We could go back to when we used to develop this position in the team withprobably Bob Latchford the likely stand out. Recent years we have had good stalwarts in Geoff Horsfield, Clayton Donaldson and now Lucas Jutkiewicz.
Good professionals and great at their jobs,but nothing comes through the home ranks.
This surely cannot be down to the fact that there is simply no one out there. Birmingham Sunday leagues, and where I come from Kidderminster and Stourbridge leagues, have age 15,16,17 year olds playing each week throwing up real talent resulting in many being taken on by Blues, West Brom, Villa etc. This is not new and we accept this is the norm.
My amazement is why no centre forwards are coming through. At the moment we are hoping Jude Bellingham will score goals for us, just like we hoped Demarie Gray and Nathan Redmond would have done before they were sold on, but they were not developed into being out and out centre forwards.
As stated it is just a thought this weekend to ponder and if anyone is out and about watching local leagues football whether it be Under 14s-Under 17s and they see any potential gems playing like Latchford or Horsfield, make a note and tell the club-who knows this blank weekend might just get us a future proper CF and it could be down to one of us.
Mitchell Bray