THERE'S BEEN A LOT TO CROW ABOUT

DANNY Crow met his Harleston Town players last weekend to discuss their plans for the summer holidays.

- CHRIS DUNLAVY

“We’ve got a lot of teachers,” laughs the 38-year-old, who has managed the Eastern Counties Premier Division side since 2022.

“So they pretty much have to go away in August. They’re here, there and everywhere. I was looking at the dates thinking to myself ‘Jesus Christ, I don’t think I’ll get a team out first day of the season!’”

Such concerns were a world away when Crow, aged just 18, made his debut for Norwich City in a Premier League game against Middlesbrough in December 2004.

“I only played for them three or four times,” he recalls. “But I can always talk about it down the pub, can’t I?”

And talk about it he does. By his own admission, Crow could chat for hours about his playing days, which began at Carrow Road as a scholar, ended at Sudbury in 2017 and took in spells at Peterborough United, Cambridge, Luton, Newport County and Lowestoft Town over the course of an admirable 400-game career.

“I look back and I’ve met some unbelievable people and had some wonderful times,” says Crow, a combative striker who scored over 100 career goals.

“And you know what? If I was a kid coming through now, I’m not even sure I’d have made it. It’s just so much harder for these academy kids to stay in the game.

“Back then, professional deals were like gold dust. They were hard to get, but once you got one it was a lot easier to have a career. Now, it’s the opposite, because the incentive just isn’t there.

“Look at it this way. My first professional deal, if I took my missus out for a meal, that was my week’s wages gone. Now, you’ve got teenagers on £2,000-a-week. Mentally, what does that do?

“If you’re at Norwich Under-23s, going to play Sunderland at the Stadium of Light and getting paid £2,000-a-week to do it, why would you want to leave that to go and play for a King’s Lynn or a Boreham Wood?