Chesterfield manager bemoans loss of proper reserve team football
Manager Paul Cook believes the days of Chesterfield having a proper reserve team playing in a proper league are sadly over for good.
Formal reserves football in the domestic game doesn’t exist now like it in the past, with such as the Central League operating on a much smaller, regionalized scale.
There has been a general trend towards Academy-led youth development for several years and a transition away from traditional reserves competitions.
"To have a reserve team is so important for lads to get minutes and games,” Cook told the recent Chesterfield fans’ forum.
“I don’t think it is possible now because of the way the football pyramid is with the Category system regarding Academies. It goes from Category 1 to Category 4 and you get into complications really quickly now and it is difficult.”
Chesterfield have been able to blood young players in the EFL Trophy this season to good effect.
Larger matchday benches mean fewer senior “fringe” players are left without game time in the EFL and while private matches are arranged in the week to give players valuable minutes, Cook indicated it was no substitute for what the previous reserves leagues used to offer.
There was also a knock-on effect in terms of the lack of match-ready players in the transfer market.
“In reserves teams you’d get young lads playing against and alongside senior players and it was good for them,” he said. “They had games to get match fit.
"Now if a player has been bombed out of his club it can take five or six weeks to get going (somewhere else), yet people expect him to be an instant hit.
“If you are looking to bring someone in during the January window who is match fit then you are not going to get them because they’re in someone else’s team playing.”
Cook was responding to a question from the floor from a supporter who remembered the days of regular reserves football.
The manager told him: “We might have played Sheffield United in a Central League game and there might be 4,000 or 5,000 people in. I think those days are gone.
"The reserve league is something sadly lost.
"Do we need it? Yes. Will it happen? No.”