‘It’s a football hotbed with queues of scouts’ – Manchester’s talent factory that could deliver historic glory for England

The suburbs of Paris, the street footballers of São Paulo, the talent factories of Lisbon’s academies — all production lines for a constant flow of talent — but to the list can be added a small triangle south of Manchester that inspired England’s journey to the Euro 2024 final in Berlin, Germany, on Sunday night.

After England’s great escape against Slovakia in their first knockout tie, it is not too grand a statement to say that key elements of England’s vast improvement and success in the following two matches were due to the impact of three players developed through Stockport’s youth academy. The trio of Kobbie Mainoo, Phil Foden and Cole Palmer turned England’s hesitant moment into a full-throttle display at the Olympiastadion.

After Gareth Southgate’s failed central midfield experiments with Trent Alexander-Arnold and Conor Gallagher, it is United’s Mainoo who has finally provided the answers and positive breakthrough that both the team and fans have been crying out for. His performances have been praised by the manager himself.

“I think all his performances have been exceptional, especially when you consider his age. We haven’t really had a player like him before. It makes a huge difference when your midfield players can receive the ball under pressure and turn with the ball so easily and comfortably,” Southgate said after the Dutch win.

After a slow start, being played out of position, Foden’s influence grew as the knockout stages progressed, to the point where he ran the show in the first half of the semi-final. This forced a terrified Ronald Koeman into a dramatic tactical change for this Netherlands side at half-time to neutralise him.

Meanwhile, Palmer’s famously cool temperament and aggressive creativity were never more on display than in the quarter-final win over Switzerland on penalties and his incisive pass to set up Ollie Watkin’s stunning goal on Wednesday night.

Mainoo and Foden were born in Stockport and Palmer in Wythenshawe and just five years separate a trio of Premier League stars who are bringing a degree of technical excellence to the England squad. Had Marcus Rashford been selected then it would have been another Wythenshawe man to add to the mix.

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The geographical links are unmistakable and Mainoo, Foden and Palmer spent time in the England camp talking about the local teams they played for and against, recalling years when the sport did not exert the pressure it does this weekend.

Mainoo’s journey began with Cheadle and Gatley, Foden’s with the Reddish Vulcans and Palmer’s with NJ Wythenshawe. Mainoo, 19, ended up at United as a boyhood Red, while Foden, the elder statesman at 24, was a City loyalist as a boyhood Blue. Palmer, 22, was the United fan who signed for City but has since moved to Chelsea. Together they are raising eyebrows, sending talent scouts and scouts to the fields of South Manchester to find the next generational talent to emerge from the area.

“It’s a hotbed of pre-academy junior football because of the growth of private leagues,” said Joe Makin, the Vulcans’ director of football development and Foden’s first coach, as well as Manchester City’s academy recruitment coordinator.

“This is my 30th year at Vulcans, so when I started there were probably two or three junior leagues, maybe four at the most in the whole of Greater Manchester. Now they’re springing up everywhere, the levels are higher, which means they’re coaching in a more professional way, even though it’s the local junior clubs. Coaches are being invited into the academies, they’re copying the methods back to the grassroots.”

Steve Vare was Mainoo’s first coach at Cheadle and Gatley and he can remember the five-year-old’s early days at the indoor football school. Even in the 14 years since then, the level of development has soared.

“A grassroots club can give them the opportunity to come and play football, enjoy the environment and if they are good enough and want to, then hopefully some professional clubs will come and take them to the next level,” he said.

“It gives them a good base in terms of starting. I think by the time Kobbie finally signed for Manchester United there was a queue of scouts who had noticed his talents and were looking to sign him.”

The development of private leagues and football schools in the area is due to the explosion of young people wanting to play football. One cannot survive without the other. The football school run by the Vulcans has grown from 15 to 20 boys to 50 to 60.

“And they all want to be football players,” Makin said. “Then you have guys like Phil, I mean, I can remember the day I first saw Phil and I can remember Cole and Kobbie.

“City were after Kobbie as much as United were, but obviously he was always going to be a United player, just like Phil was going to be a City player. But they just stand out, they have that little bit of something. But what’s happening now is the whole bubble is going up. It’s a generational thing.”

There are links everywhere. Makin helped bring Foden and Palmer to City and they tried to sign Mainoo too. Vare coached a youth club that had some of Palmer’s team-mates and he used to come and watch the under-16s play after training with City.

The emergence of talent from the area has led to an increase in scouts on the touchlines on Saturday and Sunday mornings. New rules governing academies mean youngsters can only sign for a club within an hour of home, but in the north west that still leaves plenty of options.

Scouts from United, City, Liverpool, Everton, Bolton, Preston, Blackpool, Crewe, Stoke and even Leeds will come to watch games in the area, hoping to spot another Mainoo, Palmer or Foden.

“The competition is scary,” Makin said. “You can’t afford to let anyone slip by. It’s highly unlikely now that any kid will slip by because everything is done under a microscope.

“We all have scouts but now we have scouts and volunteers, junior club managers who see someone and call someone who calls someone and eventually that kid will be scouted, no one will be missed.”

“I think it’s just the sophistication of the scouting network in general,” Vare added. “I think clubs are realising there’s such a clamour to find the best talent as early as possible that they’re coming to watch the youth games.

“And I think if the grassroots club is well established, it probably gives scouts more confidence that there is potential for a good player within the ranks of the club. And there are a lot of good grassroots clubs out there in that area that are giving kids that foundation to play football.”

These youth clubs have helped develop three players who stand out for their intelligence and technical quality. They are players who embody the shift in the development of English football from athletes to coaches.

Graeme Fowler was a coach at NJ Wythenshawe when he saw four-year-old Palmer lapping older kids in an under-7s trial.

“I walked out onto the field and saw this little blond kid who was really small and he was just running around with the ball,” he said. “At that age, kids would just chase the ball and he had 10 kids chasing him. He was running around with it and he would just make a simple turn and go the other way and the kids would follow him the other way. They couldn’t get the ball away from him no matter where he turned, and he was a year younger than all of them.

“He was miles above everyone in terms of brain. His technical ability was very good, but I had a lot of good technical players, but his brain was so advanced for a football brain at a young age it was incredible.

“He did things at seven and eight that I didn’t see 14-year-olds do. His quick thinking on the pitch, the things he saw and his technical ability to do things and be inventive, he was really good to watch. I always say I’ve had some good players, but he stands out as the best player I’ve ever coached.”

The trio are now serving as an inspiration to their community too. It could become a cycle, these young players showing that there is a path and giving kids who come from the same area, who went to the same schools, who play on the same fields the belief that there is a path to professional football for them. That this isn’t a dream that just happens to other people.

“In terms of inspiration, that was the reason I originally agreed to do the stories,” Vare explained. “It was more to inspire, hopefully, not just the kids in Cheadle and Gatley but the grassroots in general, to say that these players are not just a figment of people’s imagination, they are lads who started somewhere in grassroots clubs. It’s really good news that people can relate to, certainly from this area.

“Kobbie was just a five-year-old boy when he arrived at our football school and kids can relate to that. Unless they’ve been to Planet Zog, they know Kobbie’s story.”

Makin gave an example this week of how the boys who turn against the Vulcans are still amazed when they discover that Foden was once one of them.

“There was a little boy on Wednesday at soccer school,” he said. “He mentioned he was playing FIFA and Phil was in the game, and did he actually come to our soccer school? Because now he’s playing with Ronaldo and against all these great players in the world. So the kids love it.”

On the walls of England’s Euro 2024 training base in Blankenhain are retro posters of the 26-man squad paying homage to the clubs where their journeys began. Three of them have a distinctly south Manchester flavour and all could be key to this squad making history by becoming the first England team to win a major tournament on foreign soil.

A version of this article was first published in the Manchester Evening News on 30 June 2024.