Who says the Checkatrade Trophy hasn't been a success.

I thought this bit was interesting:

"A sum of £750,000 per season is being made available for the next three years to reward those clubs that provide starting opportunities in Sky Bet EFL fixtures for home-grown players under the age of 21 and are qualified for England (or Wales for Cardiff and Newport)."

I guess we'll miss out on this as all our young players are Welsh.

This sh** makes me so angry. By saying that the competition could help discover future England players they're trying to put the blame on us for hindering youth development if we protest against it. If they want these young players to experience first team football then they just need to stop the Premier League teams from hording hundreds of players.

Bradford subbing their keeper after 3 minutes was class.

Don't understand how these younger players will benifit that much by playing a handleful more games at a level most of them are already greater than today eg: most of readings side were at very least of championship standard already

" it's quite clear that the failings of the national team are solely down to the entrenched attitude os teams in L1 and L2. Their selfish attitude of keeping the paint pot trophy to themselves has meant that future England stars have been denied the opportunity of playing against Accrington Stanley on a Tuesday evening. This has led directly to the failings of the national team against Germany, Brazil and Iceland. The smaller clubs need t step up and make sacrifices. They can't rely on Premiership clubs to take the strain, as many of them have to spend all their valuable time making money for foreign owners. Premier ship clubs have been at the forefront of giving players from overseas the very chances that lower league clubs have been denying to our own players. It's about time that lower league clubs sorted out this mess of their own creation so that the rest of us can be proud of the English national team again. A massive payout of nearly £1 has been given to EVERY L1 and L2 club by the premiership, despite the hardships they face week in and week out. Shame on you, supporters of the traitorous L1 and L2 clubs. "

The ironic thing is that due to the new loan law, most of the promising English youngsters are already loaned at other clubs playing against U23 sides!!

As many others have said, its not really what's happening to this competition (as its always been known as the Mickey mouse trophy) its where it could lead that's the bigger issue.

Fans attending the games are potentially damaging the very club they are there to support.

When are people going to realise that boycotting games has done NOTHING to alter the views of the idiots at the top of the game we love. All it has done has ensured that we have 2 points instead of six because playing in front of a small crowd at home evens the game up. The best way of proving a point was for the League sides to knock each and every one of the Under 23 sides out at the first count.

Agreed.

In other words "we can't make a difference, so what's the point in even trying?".

Thank god that throughout history, much of humanity has disagreed with that view.

Including the greens and Trash !