Boreham Wood Chairman Danny Hunter, spoke this week to dispel rumours circulating, that the ‘Wood’ are about to lose a clutch of their promising youngsters to Pro or Conference clubs… These rumours have been fuelled, after Scouts and Managers have been seen flocking to Meadow Park in Pre-Season and more recently since ‘Wood’ began their League Campaign so impressively.
Hunter said “Obviously when youngsters like Pelly Ruddock get sold to West Ham or our old crop of youngsters like Lee Hodson are playing in Watfords 1st Team and become Northern Ireland Internationals it helps our youth structure to get a good name in the footballing world. Yet again with our new crop of youngsters, we have produced good performances against the West Ham’s, Arsenal’s, Reading’s and Watford’s during the Pre-Season. This obviously arouses interest when they then follow that up and produce mature performances thus far in our league campaign, it creates curiosity from all sorts of people whether that be Scouts, Managers or Agents”.
“Our squad this year is full of talented teenagers and boys in there early twenties, being guided by an experienced Gaffer in Ian Allinson and experienced players like Luke Garrard, Mario Noto and Omer Riza. Our track record has been recognised by our Partnership with Reading and we continue to have good relationships with the likes of Norwich, Watford, Leicester City, Peterborough and others. We have built those relationships and we welcome their interest, as it helps not only our club’s Academy profile but our current young players ambitions to go further in the game and for us to assist in their progress and to help their Development. Again all this interest creates positive publicity for our PASE Scheme and Youth Programmes”.
“There is the occasional downside, when certain agents or peoples interest are perhaps less welcomed by the club. As such we have to 
manage those situations professionally and in a correct manner. But paramount in our thinking is always the Player’s welfare and the managing of the players expectation levels. In Chez Isaac, Lee Close, Harvey Scott Morris and Rob Hastings we are talking about talented teenagers, with varying amounts of ability, maturity and self-belief. In Inih Effiong and Callum Reynolds we’re talking about 20 or 21 year olds who are also still learning their trade while improving in a competitive environment”.
“All our young lads are enjoying being in a well organised training environment, they love the responsibility they are being afforded by the Gaffer. They know they’re at a progressing non-league club, so if they don’t fulfil their ambition of getting a full time pro deal, they are in good hands with us. We are only too aware, that young players will have dips, will suffer loss of form and face distractions in so many other areas away from football. It’s how they cope with those scenario’s, that will shape their progress and futures”
“There is nothing more for the Club to say, said the Chairman at this point, other than the Transfer Window is now firmly closed until January. We are enjoying a more than reasonable start to our season and if we continue to win football matches then the interest in our young players will continue. We will re-asses the whole situation again in January, however my genuine fear is that all this will become a distraction and people will then start to believe their own publicity. We’ve worked so hard behind the scenes to improve our infra-structure but we’re still a small club, with a small support base and we only need A few poor results, suspensions, or injury’s for the players to suddenly become less focused and the wheels could very easily come off.
