Doherty's Wolves debut warms the heart

Amid what was a refreshingly stirring FA Cup tie at Doncaster last Saturday came a sight to warm the heart of any football fan – a young prospect making his club debut, writes Wolves blogger Tim Spiers.

Matt Doherty may not have progressed through the academy ranks, having been signed from Bohemians last summer aged 18, but nonetheless it was compelling to witness his first senior outing.

And overall, aside from a shaky start when he had a tendency to ball-watch and give his man freedom to roam, he did well.

In the second half, no doubt invigorated by the absence of nerves, Doherty's confidence grew and he made a few bold forays down the right flank, as well as some important clearing headers.

Over the years scores of bright young things such as Doherty have adorned the old gold and black, some going on to play regular first team football at Molineux and others dropping down the leagues to find their level.

Since the boom-and-bust policy of the early-to-mid 1990s, when the modern academy as we know it now was in its infancy, the club's hierarchy has placed a big emphasis on developing young talent.

Towards the back end of the century and throughout the noughties more and more precocious talents were blooded, sometimes with great success.

Robbie Keane, Joleon Lescott, Matt Murray, Wayne Hennessey, Lee Naylor, Keith Andrews and Mark Davies are the most obvious shining examples of the academy at work.

With finances drying up the added reliance on youth culminated in the 2006-07 season when kids Wolves-born-and-bred frequented a threadbare squad.

Seeing the likes of Murray, Daniel Jones, Mark Little, Leon Clarke and Lewis Gobern was galvanizing for the Wolves faithful, whose support was delivered with more relish than at any point in my Molineux lifetime.

Davies, Hennessey, Naylor, Kevin O'Connor, Mark Clyde, Stephen Gleeson and Carl Ikeme also featured at one time or another that season, totalling 12 home-grown players in all.

But for one reason or another the class of 2006 was mostly dispensed with by Mick McCarthy, who instead turned to young stars from lower league clubs to lay the foundations for promotion to, and survival in, the top flight.

Many of the academy graduates fell by the wayside to join the hordes of promising ex-Wolves youngsters plying their trade in the lower leagues.

Step forward Sammy Clingan, Lee Collins, JJ Melligan, Elliott Bennett, Keith Lowe and Ryan Green, to name but a few.

While McCarthy's policy of sourcing bargain-basement youngsters was ultimately fruitful and completely justified, it's sad to have seen so few graduates make it to the first team over the past two or three seasons.

In fact since Ashley Hemmings made two fleeting appearances at the tail end of the Championship-winning campaign, albeit after promotion was secured, precious few have featured.

By my count, in the 49 Premier League games we've played in 2009-10 and 2010-11, only one player from the Wolves academy – Wayne Hennessey – has made an appearance.

Is this a sad indictment of the quality of player being produced from Compton, or an inevitable consequence of the English game's top-heavy foreign squads and a gluttonous fixation with money and instant glory?

The answer lies somewhere between the two, but the issue of how to go about producing a regular conveyor belt of first-team players is undoubtedly one of the hardest nuts to crack in football.

Chelsea have thrown millions at the issue, hiring experts from around the globe in an effort to avoid shelling out unfathomable sums on the hottest young players from other clubs.

But still, despite Roman Abramovich personally requesting that they turn to youth, Chelsea have just John Terry as the only player to successfully make the transition from the youth ranks to the Blues' first team in recent years.

Southampton would be a current example of a prolific academy, with Theo Walcott and Gareth Bale – who roomed together at the Saints – now staking claims for the titles of best right and left wingers in British football.

Admittedly at Championship/League One level the chance to blood potential talent is done so with less risk involved, while producing a player to be sold for millions of pounds can shore up a small club's finances for years.

However in the examples of Walcott and Bale, they played just 60 leagues matches at Southampton before Arsenal and Tottenham came calling and the pair haven't been loaned out since.

The majority of their potential was therefore unlocked in the harshest playground of all – the Premier League.

Current next-big-thing at St Mary's, 17-year-old Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, is heading down the same path, having made around 20 appearances before reports of a £10million move to Liverpool surfaced this week.

Like they say, if you're good enough, you're old enough.

So what chance of our current crop of youngsters making the Premier League grade?

Scott Malone, Danny Batth, Hemmings, David Davis and Nathaniel Mendez-Laing are all touted as good prospects and have been dispatched on loan to Leagues One and Two to further their experience.

Will they come back ready for the rigours of the Premier League?

It's doubtful – the only way we'll know if they're good enough is to throw them in at the deep end, a luxury we just don't have when every other game is touted at 'must-win'.

Johnny Gorman and the wonderfully-named Jake Cassidy, snapped up from completely opposite ends of the football spectrum (Manchester United and Airbus UK Broughton), both have burgeoning reputations.

Gorman has, by all accounts, performed with composure and maturity for Northern Ireland, whose manager Nigel Worthington entrusted him with four caps before his 18th birthday.

And then there's Zeli Ismail.

Chris Evans came across as an inspiring, intelligent, erudite figure whenever I met him, but our former academy boss didn't half put us in it when he predicted Ismail would become the world's first £100million player.

Expectation doesn't come any bigger, although the club have done a sterling job of keeping the Serbian-born youngster, who joined Wolves aged 10, out of the limelight.

A recent hat-trick against Man United only adds fuel to the school of thought, however, that we have a genuine talent on our hands.

But while we remained entrenched in a survival scrap the temptation to field unpredictable youngsters must be low for McCarthy,

Sadly we will probably have to wait until we're a stable, self-serving, middle-of-the-road Premier League outfit before the likes of Doherty, Gorman and Ismail are given a regular chance.

The ultimate for any true football supporter is surely winning a major trophy with a team comprised entirely of locally-produced players.

Celtic achieved this in 1967 – each of their 11 Lisbon Lions was born within 30 miles of Glasgow – but it will never happen again.

That it won't is down to the money-obsessed, short-termism created by FIFA, Sky and the Premier League, but is it so much to ask to see just a few more Robbie Keanes and Joleon Lescotts wear the old gold?

Only time will tell if the class of 2011 can infiltrate McCarthy's side, but I for one would take great pleasure in seeing if they're up to the task.