{"id":107870,"date":"2025-05-17T02:22:14","date_gmt":"2025-05-17T02:22:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/107870\/"},"modified":"2025-05-17T02:22:14","modified_gmt":"2025-05-17T02:22:14","slug":"inside-the-south-london-cages-where-crystal-palaces-street-ballers-like-eberechi-eze-learn-the-tricks-of-the-trade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/107870\/","title":{"rendered":"Inside the South London cages where Crystal Palace’s street ballers like Eberechi Eze learn the tricks of the trade"},"content":{"rendered":"

Signs on the walls of the concrete Canute Gardens create the impression that it is a rules-based place. \u2018No parties\u2019, \u2018no barbeques\u2019, \u2018no ball games\u2019 they state and, at the metal gates to the football cage where a group of boys are kicking a ball around, \u2018No under-12s\u2019.<\/p>\n

But when it comes to football here there are no rules, actually, only free spirits.<\/p>\n

In the chill of the late afternoon, a dispute briefly arises about that age limit with two boys who look at least 15, though no-one\u2019s heart is in the argument and the game runs on.<\/p>\n

Half an hour earlier, there had been three boys playing here but by 5pm it is seven on one team, nine on another, with players dropping out, wandering in and the numbers not mattering. Don\u2019t ask them the score, ask them only how they scored their fifth or sixth goals.<\/p>\n

\u2018Remember my name, now?\u2019 Ryan, who is 10, tells the others after a Cruyff turn and fizzing goal from distance. Jordon manipulates the ball around Troy, one of the older boys, who cannot lay a foot on it. Ryan, the best player here, nutmegs Calvin, a manoeuvre which seems to carry more kudos than scoring. There is a social stigma to being \u2018megged\u2019.<\/p>\n

The setting is a careworn, unprepossessing and sometimes dangerous place surrounded by blocks of flats, for which \u2018Gardens\u2019 is a misnomer and where murder squad detectives were present a few years back.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Crystal <\/p>\n

Crystal Palace are preparing to take on Manchester City in the FA Cup final at Wembley\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Palace <\/p>\n

Palace have thrived this year and they have several ‘street ballers’ like Eberechi Eze in the team<\/p>\n

\"Palace <\/p>\n

Palace have been tapping into\u00a0football\u2019s most prolific new breeding ground over the past 10 years:\u00a0a 10-square mile stretch of urban South London where the sport is played in cages<\/p>\n

But in the absence of anything else, the 50m square cage in Bermondsey, south London, is paradise. It holds an identity for these boys, mostly black or of another minority, who are so wrapped up in displaying their skill that that they are playing in school uniform.<\/p>\n

It is also a microcosm of what, in the past decade, has been football\u2019s most prolific new breeding ground, a 10 square mile stretch of urban south London where cages \u2014 Astro Turf enclosed by chain-link fences \u2014 are producing for British football what Parisian banlieues (outskirts) delivered for France.<\/p>\n

At the centre of increasingly competitive attempts to tap into the talent are Crystal Palace, the south London club which has a population of seven million within a 20-minute radius of its ground, who will attempt to win their first ever silverware in the FA Cup final against Manchester City today.<\/p>\n

The stars the cages have yielded for Palace reveal the rich potential. Victor Moses, Wilfried Zaha, Nathaniel Clyne, Aaron Wan-Bissaka and Eberechi Eze, the 26-year-old on whom so many Palace fans\u2019 hopes are pinned today.<\/p>\n

Players whose hours and hours of free, unstructured initiation to the game imbues them with a feel for the ball, a wonderful touch and innate sense of the possibilities when they receive it in a confined space.<\/p>\n

The lack of space forces them to see crevices unappreciated by those who have played only structured football. The cage wall is both an obstacle and assistant for those taking the \u2018bounce ball\u2019 against it.<\/p>\n

Palace manager Oliver Glasner captured it all this week, when defining Eze\u2019s brilliance on the Men in Blazers podcast.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2018He\u2019s not a robot,\u2019 the Austrian said. \u2018No, he\u2019s a human being and you need this freedom. For me, there is balance between telling a player what he has to do, especially in attack, and letting his creativity work. Creativity needs more freedom.\u2019<\/p>\n

\"Wilfried <\/p>\n

Wilfried Zaha is one of several stars that the cages have been able to produce for Palace\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Aaron <\/p>\n

Aaron Wan-Bissaka’s impressive one-on-one tackling has been credited to the cages by some<\/p>\n

\"Gary <\/p>\n

Gary Issott, the director of Crystal Palace\u2019s academy (pictured in 2015) told Mail Sport that he believes the cages are a form of the street football that has disappeared from much of the UK<\/p>\n

For Gary Issott, the director of Crystal Palace\u2019s academy, the cages are a form of the street football that has disappeared from much of the UK. \u2018We call it \u201cdisorganised practice\u201d,\u2019 he tells Mail Sport. \u2018It might be teams of two v two or two v five in which players, of all ages, are getting a fantastic feel for the ball, an ability to protect it and manipulate it, which you don\u2019t get in organised football. The best players in the world can all handle and deal with the ball in tight pressure situations.<\/p>\n

\u2018It lends itself to creativity and flair in the way street football used to when we were kids and would play until it was dark. We lost that once there became more TV channels and phones in the early years of the 2000s. Cage football is bringing it back.\u2019<\/p>\n

Palace have invested more than \u00a320million to create one of the best Category One academies in Britain, an attempt to keep this local talent closer to home and become the club for young south London players.<\/p>\n

It is the mission of club chairman Steve Parish, who rescued the club from liquidation 15 years ago. \u2018We love the amount of local talent on our doorstep and how we are part of the area,\u2019 he tells Mail Sport. \u2018But also, the overseas lads have bought into it all brilliantly as well.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n

Palace employ over 50 scouts in south London alone, and around the cages everyone is aware of their aim to make a piece of club history this weekend.<\/p>\n

Most of them speak of Eze and Marc Guehi as players they will be looking out for, but it is telling that youngsters want to discuss other clubs, too \u2014 Arsenal, Barcelona, Liverpool and Paris Saint Germain.<\/p>\n

The rich clubs\u2019 obsessive scrutiny of every edge an opponent might find means Palace do not have a free run at the chunk of south London that has become known as the concrete Catalonia. Everyone else is on to it, too, as the fleets of smart Addison Lee taxis laid on to ferry talented boys straight from south London schools to richer clubs\u2019 training grounds proves. \u2018Arsenal are spending a fortune in this respect,\u2019 one source tells Mail Sport.<\/p>\n

The Premier League\u2019s Elite Player Performance Plan of 2012 removed geographical restrictions and gave\u00a0 clubs with Category One academies the right to sign young players from anywhere in the country. Palace, Charlton and Millwall continued to run successful youth systems, but City have a dedicated south London scout. Brighton are also active recruiters in the area.<\/p>\n

\"Chairman <\/p>\n

Chairman Steve Parish is keen for Palace to become the club for young South London players<\/p>\n


\n
\n<\/a><\/p>\n

It was Arsenal who signed Eze, a player born in Greenwich, 12 miles north of Selhurst Park. He was released by them at 13, again by Fulham at 16 and by Millwall at 18 before finding a solid footing at QPR. He has become the poster-boy for Palace and their \u2018South London and Proud\u2019 identity.<\/p>\n

Palace have made themselves attractive to south Londoners rebounding from the elite \u2014 Guehi, signed from Chelsea, and Eddie Nketiah from Arsenal \u2014 as well as the natural step up for players like Romain Esse from Millwall, or those looking to move on loan, such as Chelsea\u2019s Trevoh Chalobah and Ruben Loftus-Cheek.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The fruits of Palace\u2019s investment in their academy were evident in their Under 21s\u2019 6-0 defeat of Chelsea at Sutton United\u2019s ground a few weeks ago, though the star performer was the Sierra Leone talent Hindolo Mustapha. It is proof that Palace, like everyone else, are not just looking for talent in their own backyard.<\/p>\n

For Cal Murray, author of \u2018Something in the Water: The Story of England\u2019s Football Talent Hotbeds,\u2019 the emerging talents confirm that street football has always been the best academy and cage football particularly so.<\/p>\n

\u2018The ball never stops,\u2019 he says. \u2018There are more touches in a tighter space and more contact. There\u2019s an extra edge because one of the goals is to embarrass your opponent and not be embarrassed yourself.<\/p>\n

\u2018You see it in Zaha with the dribbling, in Wan-Bissaka with the one-on-one tackling and in Eze with the way he glides, with poise on the ball. There\u2019s almost an arrogance because he\u2019s not afraid to have the ball in difficult situations.<\/p>\n

\u2018The YouTube skillset in a competitive environment has created a hotbed in south London and it is producing a different type of English player to the traditional hotbeds of the \u201870s and \u201880s, less of the hard graft, body-on-the-line player and more like the French players that we\u2019ve seen come out of the banlieues of Paris.\u2019<\/p>\n

In many ways, Palace\u2019s academy is precisely what City\u2019s old Platt Lane youth set-up was under the leadership of Jim Cassell, in the years before the club was bought by Abu Dhabi. Palace\u2019s fans have embraced the way their club is striving to stay local at a time when the wealthiest are global entities.<\/p>\n

\"Palace <\/p>\n

Palace have become attractive to South Londoners rebounding from the elite like Marc Guehi<\/p>\n

\"Under <\/p>\n

Under Glasner, who was a shrewd and bold appointment, Palace have thrived in recent months<\/p>\n

One of the greatest weapons in Palace\u2019s armoury at Wembley today will be the Holmesdale Fanatics, the Ultras-style fan group whose legendary tifo banners have become a huge part of the club\u2019s local identity.<\/p>\n

One banner famously raised when Palace played City 11 years ago stated: \u2018You\u2019ve got the money, we\u2019ve got the soul.\u2019 And though City fans would challenge that, one of the signature moments of the club\u2019s third FA Cup final appearance today will be the tifo, or banner, being planned for the occasion by fans who have raised \u00a340,000 to create it.<\/p>\n

The extraordinary \u00a313,000 tifo produced for the semi-final against Aston Villa depicted the image of a seven-year-old who received Andros Townsend\u2019s shirt after a win at City eight years ago, above the words, \u2018Take my hand, take my whole life too.\u2019 The song \u2018Can\u2019t Help Falling In Love\u2019 has an age-old significance for Palace.<\/p>\n

This FA Cup final appearance comes in a period which, for some Holmesdale Fanatics, is Palace\u2019s best since 1990, when they played that heart-stopping 3-3 draw against Manchester United in the showpiece before losing the replay.<\/p>\n

It has been as topsy-turvy as always \u2014 heavy defeats at City and Newcastle in April, wins over Aston Villa and Tottenham in the past few weeks \u2014 but Glasner has built a team who are organised, yet also on the front foot. His was a shrewd and bold managerial appointment by Parish and Dougie Freedman, the Palace sporting director with whom Parish forged such a great working relationship. Freedman\u2019s decision to leave for a role in Saudi Arabia creates another recruitment challenge for Parish when the season ends.<\/p>\n

\u2018For me, the club\u2019s success has been built on four pillars,\u2019 former striker James Scowcroft tells Mail Sport. \u2018They\u2019ve had Steve Parish, who has been a brilliant owner and chairman. Oliver Glasner, who pound for pound is one of the best Premier League managers outside the top three. Dougie Freedman as a brilliant sporting director and identifier of talent and the Holmesdale Fanatics, who have contributed to Palace keeping this identity as south London through- and-through.<\/p>\n

\u2018They\u2019ve also mined this rich seam of street footballers who are technically brilliant, have close control, balance, pace and a change of direction. It\u2019s contributed to Palace becoming one of the most over-achieving clubs in the Premier League.\u2019<\/p>\n

Eze told Men in Blazers last year that the cage had given him the resilience to deal with the way clubs rejected him.<\/p>\n

\u2018It\u2019s the mentality of being able to fail and just go again,\u2019 he said. \u2018Make mistakes and don\u2019t be afraid of making mistakes and by the fourth, fifth time, you\u2019re going to get it. That level of resilience in your mind is the thing.\u2019<\/p>\n

At the cage Kingston, a schoolboy, says he can be anything a team might need.<\/p>\n

\u2018Winger, striker, whatever you need I\u2019m there,\u2019 he says. \u2018All I have to say to defenders is \u201ckeep your legs closed\u201d. All I have to say to the goalkeeper is \u201cmake sure you have your breakfast\u201d.\u2019<\/p>\n

He will have plenty of skills to demonstrate this weekend. Just don\u2019t expect him to stop for the FA Cup final.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Signs on the walls of the concrete Canute Gardens create the impression that it is a rules-based place.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":107871,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7757],"tags":[748,1925,92,393,97,94,4884,257,886,101,93,100,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-107870","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-london","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-crystal-palace","10":"tag-dailymail","11":"tag-england","12":"tag-fa-cup","13":"tag-football","14":"tag-great-britain","15":"tag-london","16":"tag-manchester-city","17":"tag-premier-league","18":"tag-sport","19":"tag-transfer-news","20":"tag-uk","21":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114520794551328022","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107870","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107870"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107870\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/107871"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}