It takes a lot to make it at Wolves

Wolves columnist John Lalley has viewed the first-team emergence of Matt Doherty with scepticism, after the club's mixed fortunes bringing talent through the ranks.

One of the consolations of the defeat at Liverpool was the assured assimilation of full-back Matt Doherty into Premier League football.

For 45 minutes, the young Irishman looked completely at ease, at a venue that still ranks as a massively intimidating arena for any inexperienced professional.

Doherty was cool under pressure, confident enough to choose the right options and looked to have all the attributes to make a positive impact at this level.

But whether he will be the recipient of a proper opportunity to stake a case sooner rather than later remains to be seen.

Apart from Wayne Hennessey, no Wolves player on duty at Anfield has graduated from our academy system and, of course, neither has Doherty.

Wolves paid money to secure his services but, at present, he appears to be the closest to the first team of any youngster trying to work his way through the ranks at Molineux. It is proving to be a difficult task.

James Spray dipped his toes against Millwall in the Carling Cup and made an impression, leading him afterwards to speak about pushing his claims for future recognition. The likelihood is that he faces a hell of a long wait.

It's illuminating to look at the end of season awards given to our young players over the last six campaigns. In 2004-05, there was a young professional award won by Leon Clarke.

The following year, an academy Player of the Season prize was introduced and a look at the list of winners gives an indication of the calibre of player being produced within our system.

The five academy players of the season between 2005 and 2010 were Daniel Jones, Lee Collins, Ashley Hemmings, Scott Malone and Nathan Rooney.

During the same period, the young professional award gongs went to Mark Davies, Mark Little, Elliott Bennett, Sam Vokes - another player we paid money for - and Danny Batth.

Over this time, three other products of our academy had already proved themselves as notable successes.

Hennessey was player of the season in 2007-08, Matt Murray won a similar award in 2006-07 whilst Joleon Lescott was voted player's player of the season in 2005-06.

Murray and Lescott had been joined in the 2003 promotion winning team by Lee Naylor, another product of the Wolves youth system.

Before then, of course, Robbie Keane stood as testimony that the old adage of 'good enough is old enough' still rang true after his sensational introduction as a 17-year-old back in 1997.

But even the most cursory glance at the awards of the last six years at Molineux emphasises that the transition from academy to first team is monumental.

The likes of Jones and Little briefly paraded their talents in our first team and by no means disgraced themselves, but ultimately they discovered they had no genuine futures at Molineux.

Like his two colleagues, Elliott Bennett left for the lower rungs of the game but back him to embarrass us by taking a second chance up top with Norwich.

Malone and Batth are both learning away on loan, whilst Nathan Rooney in a staggering change of fortune has had to face up to being released 12 months on from being the top scholar at Compton.

Mark Davies, for reasons obscure, is clearly one academy talent that Wolves did not realise.

Undoubtedly, injuries hampered his development here but he has proved at Bolton that he is an exceptional talent, described by our former academy director Chris Evans as ' the best young player I have worked with.'

Others pass through the system and enjoy satisfying careers lower down the scale.

Over the years, players like Jones and Little have been joined by names such as Sammy Clingan, JJ Melligan, Keith Andrews and Stephen Gleeson, an Irish quartet who flickered briefly under the Molineux spotlight before moving on.

The competition facing aspiring players these days is daunting and it probably always has been.

Back in the 1950s, when Wolves enjoyed such dominance, it was accepted that alongside the system employed by Manchester United, our production line of young talent just about surpassed any other operation in English football.

But, even as Wolves basked in the glory of unprecedented success, the majority of the players who formed the team that beat Chelsea in a remarkable FA Youth Cup final in 1958 failed to make the grade at Molineux.

Only Ted Farmer, Des Horne and to a lesser degree, John Kirkham and briefly Cliff Durandt made any minimal impression in our first team.

For a club used to taking the pick of available young talent, who harboured a genuine sense of annoyance and bewilderment that the Dudley-born genius Duncan Edwards chose to join rivals United instead of staying at home and signing for Wolves, this was a meagre return.

Conversely, Chelsea, who in those days were a flaky and inconsistent club, fielded three youngsters who would go on to win full England caps.

Not that we had much cause for worry, we waltzed to the league title that year sustained by brilliant players such as Harris, Clamp, Flowers, Deeley, Murray, Mason, Mullen and the incomparable Billy Wright, who all came through our junior ranks.

In those days, young players learning their trade were part of the ground staff, spending much of their working week sweeping terraces, scouring grime from the dressing room bath and shining the boots of their first team counterparts.

The contrast these days could hardly be starker. When we first made it to Premier League status in 2003, the match programme for our initial home game casually informed us that the Wolves under-12 academy team was away on tour in Japan.

Quite what Stanley Cullis, visionary though he was, would have made of this the mind can only boggle at!

With the charter for quality guidelines required, the organisation and manpower and the colossal expense of such operations, I wonder how many football academies are truly cost effective for what they actually achieve in their delivery.

There is nothing that pleases a supporter more than a talented youngster breaking into the first team, maybe Doherty is the latest recruit for Wolves.

Doherty might not be a Compton academy scholar himself but he might just inspire those who are.