Plaudits for the U18’s

I’m frankly having a job keeping up with what’s going on in SE7, but I’ll come to that later. I was however determined not to overlook last night’s superb victory by the U18 side away at Southampton in the 4th Round of the FA Youth Cup.

Southampton’s youth academy is lorded as one of the best in Europe. Much has been written about the “Southampton Way’ instigated by Nicola Cortese, who invested heavily in the Saints Football Development Support Centre, which is headed by Les Reed. The Saints were given Category One academy status in 2012 and play in the Premier U18 and U21 Leagues and their current first team squad is littered with ex-academy players.

So to win 3-1 at St Mary’s was a fine achievement for Steve Avory and the Addicks academy staff.

I watched some of the game on Southampton’s You Tube channel and it was a very confident performance with Joe Gomez and Tareiq Holmes-Dennis catching my eye in the bits that I watched.

The goals were scored by Ahearne-Grant in the 1st half and Cook and Umerah after Saints had equalised in the 2nd. Charlton will host Arsenal in the 5th Round at The Valley.