Quote Originally Posted by The Postman View Post
Let's assume Southy get relegated, and Croatia come up. How many parents will be happy forking out thousands of dollars for the Southy Youth Program to be in 3rd Division (even though it seems to be going quite well). And yes, I know any club can have the Youth Licence next year, but you are silly if you think where First Grade play doesn't come into account for kids and parents when it comes to wanting to play for a club.
It's not thousands of dollars, and since the Youth will still be competing in League B it's not really a change. While some may not want to go because of that, we do see many young kids going to Zone teams because it means 1st grade chances, no reason this wouldn't apply to Southy.

I would imagine if Croatia announced that next year, they would be having 13s > 18s, they would have NO issue filling those teams.
Unless they have applied, and done all the work to meet the criteria, they just can't announce they will be entering. Also they will have issues filling those teams, look at Wallsend, their youth is struggling.

The easiest way to have a successful Youth Program is to have a successful First Grade - just look at Toronto, they were in danger of folding for several years, could barely fill 2 out of 4 youth team. Then First Grade turn their fortunes around and now they are very established in the younger ages.
This is insulting to the number of people at Toronto who did a lot of hard work to develop Toronto JDL and Youth which started (and had to start) before their 1st grade started going well. If those people hadn't done the work then Toronto Youth and JDL would be in a worse spot then it is. It's much more than just having a good 1st grade side and shows an ignorance of the amount of work and time (spanning years) to rebuilt and develop a youth and JDL program.