Tuesday was the day all of the second year Swindon Town youth team scholars dreaded. Will they be offered their first professional contract or cast adrift to start their potentially long search to find a contract or forget their dream of playing professional football?

The whole team have performed brilliantly to secure the Youth Alliance South West Championship title for the third year in a row, however with only a couple of pro contracts on offer, the majority of the seven would lose out.

Midfielders Abdul Said and Matt Clark were offered first year professional contracts for the 2011/2012 season, whilst Seb Broomfield, Dan Evans, Josh Parsons, James Richards and Tom Ryan have been released.

I’ve only been to a handful of youth team games this season so I can’t really comment this time around on the merits of the decision, however the release of Broomfield and Evans does surprise me given the efforts the club, particularly David Byrne, went through to secure their signatures in the first place.

Back in June 2009, Byrne raided Plymouth Argyle’s youth team to sign Broomfield and Evans. This was after he brought over Ben Tozer and Sean Morrison, also from Plymouth, in previous years.

Plymouth were understandably not too happy another two of their young prospects had been enticed away, so rightly started their pursuit for compensation.

Rather than be tied by a tribunal decision on the compensation fee payable to Plymouth for poaching Broomfield and Evans, Town finally agreed a settlement figure in September 2009.

Whilst the fee was never made public the Advertiser reported Town paid Plymouth a five-figure fee for Dan Evans and a four-figure sum for Broomfield, plus add-ons should they be offered professional deals, first team appearances and sell on clauses.

Now then…by avoiding the tribunal and paying a very nominal sum for the two, have Town got a good deal, as it turned out they weren’t up to scratch to make the step up?

Or…

Were the two fully deserving of a professional deal, however was the financial cost to the club through additional payments to Plymouth too much to justify awarding the two their first year professional contracts…?

Like I said at the start, I’ve only seen a few youth team games so it’s hard to judge whether these two in particular deserved a deal or not…I’d be interested to hear any comments?

Anyway, all the best to Seb, Dan, Josh, James and Tom in their search to find a new club! And welcome to the Town pro ranks Abdul and Matty!