Presuming this means our much heralded youth set-up has been scrapped?

http://www.dafc.co.uk/page/YouthNews/0,,10288~3808821,00.html

East Fife are well placed as it is to pickup loanees or let-gos from premier youth setups.

I don't see the point in running a full time youth setup while having a part time first team.

Hopefully Lee can shed a bit more light on this. The way it reads is that all 4 Fife teams will run under the same youth set up, but does that mean the players in the set up get a choice of what team to play for?

I'm not really comprehending how this benefits the club. It will benefit the young players coming through having 4 clubs resources but at the end of the day if East Fife don't get any of the players then what's the point?

East Fife Chairman Lee Murray said, for a club like East Fife we need to try and be at the forefront of youth development at the Elite level, our club in the near future will only be able to get players into the Elite player development level with the help of the regional academy. We will keep our focus on our academy which has achieved legacy status, we are the only club in Fife to achieve this and one of only 16 in the whole of Scotland. We can be leaders in community participation and we aim to be one of the best community clubs in the country. Being a part of Scottish FAs elite development will I believe give EF the best chance of achieving our dream of having a squad based around Fifer's.

More of Lee Murray's all talk no walk pish

To keep myself protected for the time being.
The SFA modern apprentiship was a disaster run by Brian MCNeil. For at least a season no coach for whatever reason Colin left or whatever never replaced.
In the beginning the promise of playing time/games etc just never came about and the few times we did all play together we won usually but not many because there weren't that many. But we did beat first team twice once maybe a fluke but i can assure the second was not.
Loans to junior clubs only if they were pals of the club not in the interest of football education or the players education. Robbie and Ryan left in the first year because of billy promise if you don't believe me ask them.
Portugal football was great Colin, pity BM was there to ruin it but the chairman and manager then and now know about that. Having to go in and ask if your getting paid not once or twice, I and most of the others had to do this so Mr Chairman u won't work it out through that statement.
Only a summary of the issues that the boys and I faced.

The new system smacks of elitism to me. Where are the best of the crop going to end up playing for. Why should they ever pick East Fife as first choice if previous comments about youth development are fact. Don't think it is a positive move. Hope I am wrong.

True the club is better off full-time like Morton will be next season it gives them advantage to train plays all week than twice a week but with way things are going by saturday if we are down there's no point until we get the first team sorted out and bring success back and climb the leauges again if we do, we have always had a disadvantage being part time look at QOS and livi they got through the leauges and had a advantage over everyone like ourself, the stenhousemuir, the Forfar's etc.. they produced players like gavin reilly and stefan scougall who is at sheff utd now.
We really need to go full-time as a club to make this work!!!!