Ex Player Joel Cooper

Looks a good signing. My only reservation would be to slightly query whether he does in fact fit in our model to quite the same extent - Sykes and Whyte were 21 and 22 when they signed (respectively), so had/have more of a sell on value. At 24, Cooper Is that little bit older.
 
ttg17 said:
Looks a good signing. My only reservation would be to slightly query whether he does in fact fit in our model to quite the same extent - Sykes and Whyte were 21 and 22 when they signed (respectively), so had/have more of a sell on value. At 24, Cooper Is that little bit older.
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Probably not to the exact same extent, but if he scores 8+ in his first season, and is bought in for less than £150k, then I'd say it's good value. And if he gets 15+ goals and we're promoted, or he gets sold for £1m, then that's also the case.

Though it's very weird to be talking about the future sale of a player that's not been announced yet. What I'm saying is it's true that he doesn't have the potential value of our usual signings, but it's all just percentage play of what he brings us on the pitch.
 
unification said:
A question for maybe an exile over in Norn Iron - we've been happily hunting in the Irish Leagues lately and haven't had a bad player sign for us yet. Are the youth ranks good over there? Has Michael O'Neil's tenure been like that of Gareth Southgate for England where he's wanted to see development from grassroots up to keep populating the youth and senior sides with decent talent? I'm intrigued to know why our attention has been drawn there and why the success rate of young Northern Irish footballers is so high.
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Some of this has been answered by Northernyellow, but i will give you my take on it (and probably bore you all)

Over the last 6-7 years there has been a real drive to improve the standard of young players, Michael O'Neill was partially behind this move, he was very concerned at the high percentage of NI kids who were coming back home from England/Scotland after leaving at 16 and being released at 18/19, alot of these kids ended up quitting the game, so the IFA started looking into the reasons for this and found that the main reasons were the culture shock of the full-time environment and homesickness, it was noted that quite a few of the young players were also picking up injuries a few months into playing fulltime football due to their bodies not being used to the intensity of full time training which was hurting their development and was then leading to homesickness. To try and counter this the IFA in conjunction with Michael O'Neill and Jim Magilton setup a development programme called ClubNI were the most talented kids (nomally 25 in each year group) are given training two nights a week by FIFA Pro license holders like Jim or others this is alongside the two nights a week they train with their own clubs, the scheme has been constantly evolving over the years, this year a full time residential academy has been setup for the 16 year olds to better prepare them for living away from home and training every day.

The ClubNI project has no doubt improved the level of player coming out of NI, whilst the number of players leaving NI for England/Scotland hasn't dramatically increased the level of club they are going to has, we have players in the last few years signing for Liverpool, Man Utd, Chelsea, Wolves, Leeds, Aston Villa, West Ham, Southampton, Rangers, Celtic etc.

As well as the improved development of young players, the appointment of Ian Baraclough as our u21 manager had a positive impact, he prefered to pick u21 players who were playing regularly in the NIPL (NI Premier League) or LOI (League of Ireland) than kids playing non-competitive u23 football in England/Scotland and the team had its best run of results in its history, this increased interest among scouts in our local NIPL. Out of Baraclough's squad; Paul Smyth moved to QPR, Brad Lyons to Blackburn, Bobby Burns to Hearts, Gavin Whyte and Mark Sykes and (possibly Joel Cooper) to yourselves and these are all lads who were deemed not good enough at 16-18 to move into full time football.

The last contributing factor is the NIPL, the standard of the league has improved over this last few years. Three years ago the owner of Purple Bricks bought Larne FC, a club who were in the second tier and going nowhere fast; their ground was a dump, their fanbase was virtually non-existant and he set about investing big money in buying their stadium, building new facilities (bars, suites, changing rooms etc), a new stand and (two more in the pipeline) and really engaging with the local community but more importantly he turned the club full-time, this was the first club to go full time in NI, in his second season they were promoted to the top tier, this show of ambition drove Crusaders last season to go effectively full-time, a new millionaire investor came into Glentoran last season and they are now mostly a full time team, the biggest club in NI; Linfield has now also made the decision to go full time when the new season starts, these clubs are also giving young players opportunities in what is a competitive league, this past season both Linfield and Glentoran have given debuts to 15 year olds (both have now signed for English clubs).

As well as the clubs i have mentioned, some of the other clubs who don't have the finances to compete with the bigger clubs have turned to promoting young players instead, by doing this the young lads who don't go over the water at 16-17 years of age are getting great experience playing in a highly competitive mens league, if they have the ability they are then getting picked for the NI u19's or u21's and getting a chance to showcase their talents at international level, the fees involved in buying players from NI are also quite low in English terms, most of these lads will be sold for £100-200k but they arrive in England/Scotland at maybe 19, 20, 21 years of age with 100-150 games under their belt and international experience.
 
NornIron said:
Some of this has been answered by Northernyellow, but i will give you my take on it (and probably bore you all)

Over the last 6-7 years there has been a real drive to improve the standard of young players, Michael O'Neill was partially behind this move, he was very concerned at the high percentage of NI kids who were coming back home from England/Scotland after leaving at 16 and being released at 18/19, alot of these kids ended up quitting the game, so the IFA started looking into the reasons for this and found that the main reasons were the culture shock of the full-time environment and homesickness, it was noted that quite a few of the young players were also picking up injuries a few months into playing fulltime football due to their bodies not being used to the intensity of full time training which was hurting their development and was then leading to homesickness. To try and counter this the IFA in conjunction with Michael O'Neill and Jim Magilton setup a development programme called ClubNI were the most talented kids (nomally 25 in each year group) are given training two nights a week by FIFA Pro license holders like Jim or others this is alongside the two nights a week they train with their own clubs, the scheme has been constantly evolving over the years, this year a full time residential academy has been setup for the 16 year olds to better prepare them for living away from home and training every day.

The ClubNI project has no doubt improved the level of player coming out of NI, whilst the number of players leaving NI for England/Scotland hasn't dramatically increased the level of club they are going to has, we have players in the last few years signing for Liverpool, Man Utd, Chelsea, Wolves, Leeds, Aston Villa, West Ham, Southampton, Rangers, Celtic etc.

As well as the improved development of young players, the appointment of Ian Baraclough as our u21 manager had a positive impact, he prefered to pick u21 players who were playing regularly in the NIPL (NI Premier League) or LOI (League of Ireland) than kids playing non-competitive u23 football in England/Scotland and the team had its best run of results in its history, this increased interest among scouts in our local NIPL. Out of Baraclough's squad; Paul Smyth moved to QPR, Brad Lyons to Blackburn, Bobby Burns to Hearts, Gavin Whyte and Mark Sykes and (possibly Joel Cooper) to yourselves and these are all lads who were deemed not good enough at 16-18 to move into full time football.

The last contributing factor is the NIPL, the standard of the league has improved over this last few years. Three years ago the owner of Purple Bricks bought Larne FC, a club who were in the second tier and going nowhere fast; their ground was a dump, their fanbase was virtually non-existant and he set about investing big money in buying their stadium, building new facilities (bars, suites, changing rooms etc), a new stand and (two more in the pipeline) and really engaging with the local community but more importantly he turned the club full-time, this was the first club to go full time in NI, in his second season they were promoted to the top tier, this show of ambition drove Crusaders last season to go effectively full-time, a new millionaire investor came into Glentoran last season and they are now mostly a full time team, the biggest club in NI; Linfield has now also made the decision to go full time when the new season starts, these clubs are also giving young players opportunities in what is a competitive league, this past season both Linfield and Glentoran have given debuts to 15 year olds (both have now signed for English clubs).

As well as the clubs i have mentioned, some of the other clubs who don't have the finances to compete with the bigger clubs have turned to promoting young players instead, by doing this the young lads who don't go over the water at 16-17 years of age are getting great experience playing in a highly competitive mens league, if they have the ability they are then getting picked for the NI u19's or u21's and getting a chance to showcase their talents at international level, the fees involved in buying players from NI are also quite low in English terms, most of these lads will be sold for £100-200k but they arrive in England/Scotland at maybe 19, 20, 21 years of age with 100-150 games under their belt and international experience.
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Fascinating insight, thanks for sharing. I had always admired Michael O'Neill just for his accomplishments with the NI men's team on the pitch, but it sounds as if his impact goes far deeper than that.
 
NornIron said:
Some of this has been answered by Northernyellow, but i will give you my take on it (and probably bore you all)

Over the last 6-7 years there has been a real drive to improve the standard of young players, Michael O'Neill was partially behind this move, he was very concerned at the high percentage of NI kids who were coming back home from England/Scotland after leaving at 16 and being released at 18/19, alot of these kids ended up quitting the game, so the IFA started looking into the reasons for this and found that the main reasons were the culture shock of the full-time environment and homesickness, it was noted that quite a few of the young players were also picking up injuries a few months into playing fulltime football due to their bodies not being used to the intensity of full time training which was hurting their development and was then leading to homesickness. To try and counter this the IFA in conjunction with Michael O'Neill and Jim Magilton setup a development programme called ClubNI were the most talented kids (nomally 25 in each year group) are given training two nights a week by FIFA Pro license holders like Jim or others this is alongside the two nights a week they train with their own clubs, the scheme has been constantly evolving over the years, this year a full time residential academy has been setup for the 16 year olds to better prepare them for living away from home and training every day.

The ClubNI project has no doubt improved the level of player coming out of NI, whilst the number of players leaving NI for England/Scotland hasn't dramatically increased the level of club they are going to has, we have players in the last few years signing for Liverpool, Man Utd, Chelsea, Wolves, Leeds, Aston Villa, West Ham, Southampton, Rangers, Celtic etc.

As well as the improved development of young players, the appointment of Ian Baraclough as our u21 manager had a positive impact, he prefered to pick u21 players who were playing regularly in the NIPL (NI Premier League) or LOI (League of Ireland) than kids playing non-competitive u23 football in England/Scotland and the team had its best run of results in its history, this increased interest among scouts in our local NIPL. Out of Baraclough's squad; Paul Smyth moved to QPR, Brad Lyons to Blackburn, Bobby Burns to Hearts, Gavin Whyte and Mark Sykes and (possibly Joel Cooper) to yourselves and these are all lads who were deemed not good enough at 16-18 to move into full time football.

The last contributing factor is the NIPL, the standard of the league has improved over this last few years. Three years ago the owner of Purple Bricks bought Larne FC, a club who were in the second tier and going nowhere fast; their ground was a dump, their fanbase was virtually non-existant and he set about investing big money in buying their stadium, building new facilities (bars, suites, changing rooms etc), a new stand and (two more in the pipeline) and really engaging with the local community but more importantly he turned the club full-time, this was the first club to go full time in NI, in his second season they were promoted to the top tier, this show of ambition drove Crusaders last season to go effectively full-time, a new millionaire investor came into Glentoran last season and they are now mostly a full time team, the biggest club in NI; Linfield has now also made the decision to go full time when the new season starts, these clubs are also giving young players opportunities in what is a competitive league, this past season both Linfield and Glentoran have given debuts to 15 year olds (both have now signed for English clubs).

As well as the clubs i have mentioned, some of the other clubs who don't have the finances to compete with the bigger clubs have turned to promoting young players instead, by doing this the young lads who don't go over the water at 16-17 years of age are getting great experience playing in a highly competitive mens league, if they have the ability they are then getting picked for the NI u19's or u21's and getting a chance to showcase their talents at international level, the fees involved in buying players from NI are also quite low in English terms, most of these lads will be sold for £100-200k but they arrive in England/Scotland at maybe 19, 20, 21 years of age with 100-150 games under their belt and international experience.
Click to expand...
Far more detail than I managed!- it seems to be the case that the players that work out from NI are the ones that developed a bit later, and weren't picked up by clubs 'over the water' when they were teenagers. Ronan Curtis (who may be irritating, but is good) fits that description as well. Curtis came from Derry City, who are in Northern Ireland but play in the League of Ireland (it's a long story). The League of Ireland claims to be L1 standard, which it clearly isn't. Pat Hoban never made it with us, or with any club in England, and yet went back to Dundalk and carried on scoring lots of goals- so much so, that there was talk of him getting into the Ireland squad before Covid stopped the season.
 
NornIron said:
Some of this has been answered by Northernyellow, but i will give you my take on it (and probably bore you all)

Over the last 6-7 years there has been a real drive to improve the standard of young players, Michael O'Neill was partially behind this move, he was very concerned at the high percentage of NI kids who were coming back home from England/Scotland after leaving at 16 and being released at 18/19, alot of these kids ended up quitting the game, so the IFA started looking into the reasons for this and found that the main reasons were the culture shock of the full-time environment and homesickness, it was noted that quite a few of the young players were also picking up injuries a few months into playing fulltime football due to their bodies not being used to the intensity of full time training which was hurting their development and was then leading to homesickness. To try and counter this the IFA in conjunction with Michael O'Neill and Jim Magilton setup a development programme called ClubNI were the most talented kids (nomally 25 in each year group) are given training two nights a week by FIFA Pro license holders like Jim or others this is alongside the two nights a week they train with their own clubs, the scheme has been constantly evolving over the years, this year a full time residential academy has been setup for the 16 year olds to better prepare them for living away from home and training every day.

The ClubNI project has no doubt improved the level of player coming out of NI, whilst the number of players leaving NI for England/Scotland hasn't dramatically increased the level of club they are going to has, we have players in the last few years signing for Liverpool, Man Utd, Chelsea, Wolves, Leeds, Aston Villa, West Ham, Southampton, Rangers, Celtic etc.

As well as the improved development of young players, the appointment of Ian Baraclough as our u21 manager had a positive impact, he prefered to pick u21 players who were playing regularly in the NIPL (NI Premier League) or LOI (League of Ireland) than kids playing non-competitive u23 football in England/Scotland and the team had its best run of results in its history, this increased interest among scouts in our local NIPL. Out of Baraclough's squad; Paul Smyth moved to QPR, Brad Lyons to Blackburn, Bobby Burns to Hearts, Gavin Whyte and Mark Sykes and (possibly Joel Cooper) to yourselves and these are all lads who were deemed not good enough at 16-18 to move into full time football.

The last contributing factor is the NIPL, the standard of the league has improved over this last few years. Three years ago the owner of Purple Bricks bought Larne FC, a club who were in the second tier and going nowhere fast; their ground was a dump, their fanbase was virtually non-existant and he set about investing big money in buying their stadium, building new facilities (bars, suites, changing rooms etc), a new stand and (two more in the pipeline) and really engaging with the local community but more importantly he turned the club full-time, this was the first club to go full time in NI, in his second season they were promoted to the top tier, this show of ambition drove Crusaders last season to go effectively full-time, a new millionaire investor came into Glentoran last season and they are now mostly a full time team, the biggest club in NI; Linfield has now also made the decision to go full time when the new season starts, these clubs are also giving young players opportunities in what is a competitive league, this past season both Linfield and Glentoran have given debuts to 15 year olds (both have now signed for English clubs).

As well as the clubs i have mentioned, some of the other clubs who don't have the finances to compete with the bigger clubs have turned to promoting young players instead, by doing this the young lads who don't go over the water at 16-17 years of age are getting great experience playing in a highly competitive mens league, if they have the ability they are then getting picked for the NI u19's or u21's and getting a chance to showcase their talents at international level, the fees involved in buying players from NI are also quite low in English terms, most of these lads will be sold for £100-200k but they arrive in England/Scotland at maybe 19, 20, 21 years of age with 100-150 games under their belt and international experience.
Click to expand...

Really interesting insight, @NornIron, and thanks for sharing. It goes to show what FA's can do to develop the game. I think praise can certainly be heaped upon both England and Northern Ireland FA's for having a philosophy to improve things and hiring the right people to employ it. Even if the approach doesn't always yield international trophies, it's far better than watching a beleaguered head coach pick the best XI English players and then cross his fingers.

Two final questions for you if I may:
- What are the owners of Crusaders and Larne looking to achieve by pumping money into clubs in a league that has a definite ceiling? I can't see Northern Irish clubs going deep in any European competition and growth of the fanbase is going to be fairly small anyway so the financial rewards must be quite small. Is this just benevolence or are the rewards to selling to English/Scottish clubs sufficient enough to keep them interested?
- How did you come to helpfully post on here? It doesn't sound like you're an Oxford fan and this is an esoteric place to just stumble upon!
 
Welcome to Oxford United Joel.
Hope to see you contributing to the 1st Team soon, and helping us secure promotion next season.
 
Welcome Joel. Enjoy your time with the mighty Yellows.
 
Spoke to some mates at Linfield and they are gutted to see him go, but wish him well.

Given the chance I am sure he can become a real great edition to the team.

Welcome to the Ulsterman!
 
Peterdev said:
Good luck Joel. Leap year baby like my dad so great hopes
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Date of Birth 29th February 1996. Good job we have lost Singha as sponsors or he would have had to have a plain shirt being only 6 years old!!!
 
unification said:
Two final questions for you if I may:
- What are the owners of Crusaders and Larne looking to achieve by pumping money into clubs in a league that has a definite ceiling? I can't see Northern Irish clubs going deep in any European competition and growth of the fanbase is going to be fairly small anyway so the financial rewards must be quite small. Is this just benevolence or are the rewards to selling to English/Scottish clubs sufficient enough to keep them interested?
- How did you come to helpfully post on here? It doesn't sound like you're an Oxford fan and this is an esoteric place to just stumble upon!
Click to expand...

In the case of Larne, the guy who owns Purple Bricks grew up in Larne and wants to give something back to the local community, what he has done has been amazing, he has invested around £3 million so far with another £2-3 million being earmarked for future stadium and training ground development, he is doing it the right way aswell, he has set up a womens team, he has rebuilt their youth system and he makes it a condition of players signing that they have to do their share of community engagement work, visiting schools, hospitals, care homes, club sponsors etc. His aim is to make Larne the best team in NI. Their average attendance before the takeover was around 150, last season it was around 1,500.

In the case of Crusaders they are a members owned club, so there is no wealthy backer, their supporters took control of the club about 15 years ago, when it was on the brink of going bust with debts of approx half a million, their supporters did everything to save the club, fans even took out second mortgages on their homes to try and keep the club afloat, over the years they have managed to grow their revenues through smart investments, they were the first team to lay a 3G pitch, which gave them a big advantage over other teams in the league both financially and in terms of playing games (other teams struggled to play on it!!) they have a new social club and restaurant open 7 days a week these revenue streams allowed them to inves in their squad and win several league titles and the massive financial rewards that come with it, they also had lucky draws as well playing Fulham and Wolves in recent years.

The more curious case is Glentoran they were purchased by a Welsh-Iranian businessman last season and he has mostly turned them fulltime, what his motives are i have no idea. As for Linfield, they are the biggest team in NI probably even the whole island, their fans have demanded that they match Larne and Crusaders and go fulltime, they have always had the revenues to do it, they receive £250,000 a year for the rental of Windsor Park from the IFA, the maintenance/rates are paid for by the IFA and they qualify for Europe virtually every season guaranteeing a minimum £250,000 (last year they made over £1 million from Europe).

I came to post on here because i am a Northern Ireland supporter and I keep an eye on teams who have players from NI, I have been a lurker on here since Gavin Whyte signed but after seeing the questions being asked about NI football i decided to join.
 
NornIron said:
In the case of Larne, the guy who owns Purple Bricks grew up in Larne and wants to give something back to the local community, what he has done has been amazing, he has invested around £3 million so far with another £2-3 million being earmarked for future stadium and training ground development, he is doing it the right way aswell, he has set up a womens team, he has rebuilt their youth system and he makes it a condition of players signing that they have to do their share of community engagement work, visiting schools, hospitals, care homes, club sponsors etc. His aim is to make Larne the best team in NI. Their average attendance before the takeover was around 150, last season it was around 1,500.

In the case of Crusaders they are a members owned club, so there is no wealthy backer, their supporters took control of the club about 15 years ago, when it was on the brink of going bust with debts of approx half a million, their supporters did everything to save the club, fans even took out second mortgages on their homes to try and keep the club afloat, over the years they have managed to grow their revenues through smart investments, they were the first team to lay a 3G pitch, which gave them a big advantage over other teams in the league both financially and in terms of playing games (other teams struggled to play on it!!) they have a new social club and restaurant open 7 days a week these revenue streams allowed them to inves in their squad and win several league titles and the massive financial rewards that come with it, they also had lucky draws as well playing Fulham and Wolves in recent years.

The more curious case is Glentoran they were purchased by a Welsh-Iranian businessman last season and he has mostly turned them fulltime, what his motives are i have no idea. As for Linfield, they are the biggest team in NI probably even the whole island, their fans have demanded that they match Larne and Crusaders and go fulltime, they have always had the revenues to do it, they receive £250,000 a year for the rental of Windsor Park from the IFA, the maintenance/rates are paid for by the IFA and they qualify for Europe virtually every season guaranteeing a minimum £250,000 (last year they made over £1 million from Europe).

I came to post on here because i am a Northern Ireland supporter and I keep an eye on teams who have players from NI, I have been a lurker on here since Gavin Whyte signed but after seeing the questions being asked about NI football i decided to join.
Click to expand...
Your posts have been very welcome, I have been to many Linfield games and also some good night's over the Crues back in the day.
 
NornIron said:
In the case of Larne, the guy who owns Purple Bricks grew up in Larne and wants to give something back to the local community, what he has done has been amazing, he has invested around £3 million so far with another £2-3 million being earmarked for future stadium and training ground development, he is doing it the right way aswell, he has set up a womens team, he has rebuilt their youth system and he makes it a condition of players signing that they have to do their share of community engagement work, visiting schools, hospitals, care homes, club sponsors etc. His aim is to make Larne the best team in NI. Their average attendance before the takeover was around 150, last season it was around 1,500.

In the case of Crusaders they are a members owned club, so there is no wealthy backer, their supporters took control of the club about 15 years ago, when it was on the brink of going bust with debts of approx half a million, their supporters did everything to save the club, fans even took out second mortgages on their homes to try and keep the club afloat, over the years they have managed to grow their revenues through smart investments, they were the first team to lay a 3G pitch, which gave them a big advantage over other teams in the league both financially and in terms of playing games (other teams struggled to play on it!!) they have a new social club and restaurant open 7 days a week these revenue streams allowed them to inves in their squad and win several league titles and the massive financial rewards that come with it, they also had lucky draws as well playing Fulham and Wolves in recent years.

The more curious case is Glentoran they were purchased by a Welsh-Iranian businessman last season and he has mostly turned them fulltime, what his motives are i have no idea. As for Linfield, they are the biggest team in NI probably even the whole island, their fans have demanded that they match Larne and Crusaders and go fulltime, they have always had the revenues to do it, they receive £250,000 a year for the rental of Windsor Park from the IFA, the maintenance/rates are paid for by the IFA and they qualify for Europe virtually every season guaranteeing a minimum £250,000 (last year they made over £1 million from Europe).

I came to post on here because i am a Northern Ireland supporter and I keep an eye on teams who have players from NI, I have been a lurker on here since Gavin Whyte signed but after seeing the questions being asked about NI football i decided to join.
Click to expand...

Thanks again for the post. Much appreciated.
 
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