A number of top managers are questioning the academy system which was brought in about seven years ago.

Like most managers, I felt at the time it was a step forward from when clubs had to wait until a boy was 14 to sign him on what was called a schoolboy form which enabled him to attend training sessions in his school holidays.

He could only play for his school teams and often, as was the case with someone like Steve Moran, because he was such an outstanding young player, in his later years at school he was playing for not only for the teams of his own age but also the year above, particularly at county level.

And as a result, when he eventually was able to come for training at the club, he was probably too tired after his many games at schoolboy level.

The academy system, brought in against the wishes of most members of the Schools FA, enabled clubs to have boys as young as eight and nine attached to them.

However, it seems now that a lot of our top managers are querying not only the cost of running the system.

But, as I have pointed out, the fact that while a boy may be connected with the club at eight or nine, what happens if he hasn't made sufficient progress by the time he reaches 13 or 14 and has to be told that the club have no further use for him?

He presumably has to go back to his school team with tail between his legs, and, knowing how cruel sometimes children can be to each other, there is a great danger that some of the boys will turn away from the game completely before they have even left school.

The proof of the pudding, as it was in my days at The Dell when, through lack of funds we had to have a good youth system, is the number who progress through the club into the first team

We are finding now that not only are clubs spending a huge amount on their own academy but are also scouring around other club academies and signing boys from lower division set-ups - some at 14-year-old level before they sign their own final contract with their local club.

Some are also paying fees for 16-year-olds who have been brought through at smaller clubs.

I have had to sit on tribunals trying to settle a fee which should be paid by a big club to a lesser club for having poached a youngster after the small club has done all the ground work.

But after a seven-year period of academies, how many local boys have made it to the first team of their home-town club? Apparently not enough for the academies to be universally accepted.

Don't forget, it is so important to stay in top flight that it has become easier with the Bosman ruling to nip out and sign Johnny Foreigner than take a chance on local boys.

Thankfully, we didn't have that problem ... or the likes of Steve Moran, Steve Williams, Alan Shearer, Matt Le Tissier and the Wallace brothers may not have graced our first team.