Thetownend.com

Everton to beat Man Utd, Chelsea for Swindon kid Henshall
01.09.09 | tribalfootball.com

"England youth winger Alex Henshall is a target for Everton.

The Daily Mirror says Everton boss David Moyes has set up a surprise swoop for Henshall - as well as plotting new faces for his first team.

Moyes is in the lead to land the 16-year-old sensation from Swindon. Henshall dazzled in the recent prestigious Milk Cup tournament in Ireland and shone against the Goodison kids in one game.

Left winger Henshall, who has broken into the England ranks despite playing for a lower league outfit, has also been hunted by Manchester United and Chelsea.

But Everton have moved in first and hope that Henshall signs this week, with the fee to be decided by a compensation tribunal panel."


It is so annoying how these Prem clubs are allowed to hoover up these promising kids then never give them the chance before spitting them out the other end with their confidence shot and most end up giving up football or playing non-league. I think if a kid signs schoolboy forms he should be at that club until 19 or even 21 which would protect the smaller teams from seeing their most talented prospects being lost for peanuts without even having a chance to push for the first team.

like it or not,that's the way it is.swindon spit out kids too you know.it's the same at every club.
clubs like us benefit in other ways, as kids who dont cut it at top clubs filter down the leagues

I thought we'd tied him down to a longer deal?

I thought he'd signed a one year contract but I can't find any reference to it anywhere.

AF did say that he wanted to be selling at least one youngster every year to balance the books!

bollocks would be nice to have him in the first team for at least a couple of seasons.

Is this the kid that was tipped to be Towns youngest ever first teamer? Very disappointing if he goes, fact of life or not.

problem is if it goes to tribunal we will be lucky to get 25k for a 16 year old

Of course it could be paper speculation...

I heard that he's a Town fan, and he would've seen what Everton has done to Jukebox since he left us.

It would be interesting to hear how Moyes pitched Everton to him...."Sign for us and you too could be playing for Motherwell in 12 months time".

I'm still sure I read something about him signing a contract - an interview with Fitton where he said he'd had offers for him but he sat down with the kids parents and discussed it and everyone agreed it was best for him to stay with Swindon. Maybe it was in a programme?

May be an old rumour as it was doing the rounds in the press during the Milk Cup.

If he's 16 I presume he'll be or have been on an academy/scholarship contract, which would still require Everton to place a bid?

from what I've heard he was approached by Everton late last year but was persuaded to stay here because he had a better chance of first team football and was told if he kept up his development he'd be pushing for a place in the first team by the time he was 16.

he decided to stay here and turned down Everton...

that was back in december I heard all this...

everton will have to compensate us, but i doubt it will be alot.
i've seen evertons facilities and they are awesome.they also throw alot more time and money inot their academy.

just because jukebox hasn't set them alight and featured much, doesn't mean this lad wont progress.
if they are good enough they will come through.this lad is awesome and if he fulfills his potential is gonna be a big star.

That's the one. I remember Byrne talking about him at a Trust meeting last season. That's when he said that Fitton had persuaded him to sign with us instead of Chelsea/Man Utd/Everton.

I think a tribunal is the worst thing that could happen for us, as we'd lose him for peanuts. Does the transfer window apply to kids in the same way as pros? If so, I'll be hoping to hear no further developments on this story for the rest of the day!

I seem to remember Fitton crowing recently that he had sat down the the boy and his parents and pursuaded them to stay here and reject the bigger clubs that was interested

SO has he gone or not?

Nope.

I received a rather cryptic text from 88442 earlier saying that we had interest in a few of our players but the club turned them all down.

"The club are focused on building for a bright future"

The "full story" from Michael's text can be found on the OS now. Basically a few clubs were interested in various players, some even made offers, and they were kindly told where to stick them because we don't want to sell anybody.

That's good to hear.

We sold Cox due to Fitton, he doesn't need to sell anyone else at the moment I'd imagine.

Having read the story though it only mentions squad players, so the youth team kid could still be on his way.

Shame really, it would be nice to have another youth product in the first team squad. We have 3 at present, when was the last time we had so many?

That's a bit harsh, I think we sold Cox due to Cox as much as anything and did well to keep hold of him as long as we did. Plenty of places he'd have been gone last January for £600k (including Swindon not so long ago)

Why's it harsh? Do you reckon Wilson wanted to sell him? Who did the deal? Who promised Cox he could leave to a bigger club if it was right for him and us?

Fitton.

And I'm not moaning about it, just saying it how it is. I'd rather we sold one good player every so often than a bunch of them at once, particularly if they haven't had a chance to feature/prove much at Swindon. Take my point about promising the player he can progress too, Cox wouldn't have joined in the first place.

The point was we don't have to sell any more players out of necessity. I reckon we'd have taken a million quid for Cox, but Fitton got the best out of the deal.

Skysports reckons Norwich made a bid for McNamee that we turned down?

Fitton is great  :wotjump:

It's harsh because the way you phrased made it sound as if Cox leaving was solely down to Fitton, whereas (and the point I was making) was that there was no way Cox would have stayed beyond this summer. He wanted to move on to better himself (and fair enough) and we got a good deal and a good player longer than many of us expected.

On the flip side, if Fitton didn't want to sell then Cox would still be here. It doesn't really matter, we should all channel our negative energy into hating Simon Cox the judas cunt.

No chance. 30 years ago maybe, but these days there's no way you can keep hold of a valuable player that wants to play at a higher level if they're determined to go. I think we're actually agreeing with each other though :)

Hope he stays...on another scale we got Marshall for almost Zilch..he was Eastleighs best player by far...they lost on a playoff to get in the Conference...if he had stayed they could be in the conference now...now before you shoot me down i know Marshall isnt Zidane but hope you know what ime getting at....ware easy pickings for Everton etc...

i've never even heard of him

he came on as sub against wolves the other night

How old is Henshall? The Adver are saying he's only 15, with other reports saying 16?

Either way, it is just wrong for a kid to be put under this sort of pressure by the clubs involved. By far the biggest problem with youth development in England is the way clubs treat kids as pieces of meat that can be bought and sold. We should be letting them get on with being kids and developing their game rather than having to deal with all this shit.

Having said that, I reckon we should give him a senior squad number as soon as possible. Even if he doesn't play it would give him a boost and encourage him to stay with us for a while.

Henshall? Our subs that came on were Marshall, O'Brien and Macklin I thought?

It was a joke BO.

He's pretending Sonic doesn't know who Marshall is.

um, I knew that. honest!! :doh:

BO - that's an unfortunate abbreviation.

Its a stinker right enough!

Henshall is out of contract this coming summer so it will be interesting to see if he signs on or moves to one of the bigger boys to play reserve football and then be released without playing a first team game

Wouldn't be surprised if they gave him a first team debut in one of the final games.

the lad is still at school.he's not knocking on the first team door yet,or the reserves.he's knocking on the youth team door.

I meant as a token gesture... it's not uncommon for these things to happen.

it is possible.the lad is the best prospect we have in fairness

"Chelsea's transfer embargo will force them to miss out on Swindon's teenage winger Alex Henshall, clearing the way for Premier League rivals Manchester United and Everton.
Full story: Daily Mirror"

On the old BBC gossip column today

Except the BBC also claim Chelsea may be allowed to trade under appeal of their charges.

And their original source is the Mirror who follow all the other redtops in printing utter shite about lower league sides

Crewe have reported a Premier League club for an illegal approach to a 15 year old.

Following what happened to Chelsea I reckon we could see a flood of similar complaints from smaller clubs against bigger clubs. Which could be good news for the smaller clubs as it could make bigger clubs act a lot more carefully when it comes recruiting younger players.

I'm sure they will still try and ride roughshod and approach the youngsters and look for a way around the rulebook.

The premier clubs think they have the right to pick the cream of the crop regardless, and then crush them years down the line by releasing them as they have bought so many foreign imports they are no longer deemed good enough.

swindon do the same

I was thinking the same.  I saw a poster for swindon youth academy against Corsham youth academy.   If Corsham magically have any decent youth, I suspect swindon will have them.  Doesnt make it any less annoying, especially when it a youngster you've put a lot of time and training into.

That's an interesting point about non-league clubs. If one of their youth players leaves for a league club do all the same rules still apply, is some form of payment still required?

I'm guessing in reality it probably doesn't matter too much. The sums of money involved would be peanuts even for a club like Swindon and its not like a player could develop that much at a small local side and so would need to move on anyway if they had any real talent. And wouldn't a club like Swindon have a good relationship with all the local sides as well?

You can also look at it the other way round. I'd imagine a lot of players that go through the youth ranks at Swindon who don't make the grade end up at small local clubs - so in effect they're getting a player for free.

I think the important point that people are missing is that the rule-breaking is not about morals, it's a contractual thing. Therefore, if we steal somebody from Corsham youth, we'd only be doing anything wrong if we encouraged them to break a contract with Corsham. There's nothing wrong with what we did with, say, the Plymouth kiddies. They were offered deals by us and chose to come here rather than extend their deals at Plymouth.

99% of our "promising youngsters" seem to lose their promise.

Get in, The Football League rebels against the greedy Premier League Cunts

Henshall has made the England Under 16 squad :

http://www.thefa.com/England/MensUnder16s/NewsAndFeatures/2009/Squad_Wales.aspx

IIRC the last one of ours to do that was Rideout

I thought Leigh Mills was U16 Captain?

I though it was U15 BS

I could be wrong mind, the old grey cells are not what they were

I think barry is right mate -

Christ I am thick then

You sound surprised? :)

NO NOT REALLY

 :D

I think Henshall's probably the only players in that squad not to go through the Academy system, which a number of Prem clubs have got.

Elikem Amenku
West Bromwich Albion

Zak Ansah
Arsenal

Tyler Blackett
Manchester United

Anthony Callaghan
Sunderland

Robbie Cotton
Blackburn Rovers

Jordan Cousins
Charlton Athletic

Curtis Edwards
Middlesbrough

Matthias Fanimo
West Ham United

Luke Hendrie
Manchester United

Alex Henshall
Swindon Town

Hallam Hope
Everton

Adam Jackson
Middesbrough

Sam Magri
Portsmouth

Callum McFadzean
Sheffield United

Adil Nabi
West Bromwich Albion

Jordan Pickford
Sunderland

Nathan Redmond
Birmingham City

Bradley Watkins
Aston Villa

Illustrious club company there and as Summer says Henshall is probably the only product of a non academy team.

I'm told by my HP that Alex Henshaw is travelling with the first team to Exeter, I assume as part of the squad. I guess it is a bit early to expect him to be involved but nice for him to get a taste just the same.

Higher power?  Hamster poacher?  Helium pig?

Would be good for the lad to be involved in the 1st team squad, even if not put on its good to be included.

And also shows him that the club are desperate for him to stay...which has not always been the case in the past.

[url width=400 height=300]http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s153/dwhit64/Life%20and%20Design/HP.jpg[/url]


I'm  going to look a tit if its not true. The info came through Mrs Batch who only remembered his name as "Alex H", but she knew he would be the youngest Town player if he played (is that true as it is only the JPT?? ) and was confident it was Henshaw. The person she got it from was fairly close to the lad himself ;)

Let's hope those lights at Exeter are brighter than the one's at Chelsea/Man Ure/Liverpool etc.

Homosexual Partner

close enough to Henshall I suppose...

My bad. Sorry.

Ear-wigging on the conversation of a bloke who's son is at the same school as henshall last night, he's off to man utd apparently

Oh, well that's nailed on then  ::)

Saw a bit of Henshall playing for England against Wales last night, claimed an assist and from what I saw, looked very dangerous and lively with good delivery. Would be terrific to see him make his name here at Swindon before moving on to bigger and better things!