We should shout about ourselves more!

By Wendy Gee - 

MANAGER Ian Baird believes Eastleigh should be making more of their youth development programme.

Having helped the likes of Aaron Martin and Brett Williams into the Football League, the Spitfires are celebrating another significant success story.

Seventeen-year-old defender Will Aimson is joining Championship club Hull City on a one-year scholarship following trials on Humberside.

Like Saints star Martin, the Spitfires' reserve team skipper is a commanding centre-back. He will join Hull as a third-year scholar after completing his second year at Brockenhurst College.

Baird said: "It's another milestone for Eastleigh. But I don't think the club have made enough of the players we've had here, like Aaron, Brett, Mark Marshall and Damian Scannell, who have made it to the Footbal League.

"Other clubs shout it from the rooftops and Eastleigh should do more to show what young players can achieve if they come here."

Whereas Martin, Williams, Marshall and Scannell were spotted playing for Eastleigh's first team, Aimson has got his pro break without a sniff of Blue Square football.

And although the Spitfires' ambitious new owners Stewart Donald and Neil Fox are fully behind the club's youth development programme, Baird foresees that youngsters' already slender chances of first-team football will become slimmer still next season when the pressure is on to reach the Conference National.

Baird was already feeling the heat after a run of five league games without a win, culminating in a woeful 6-1 drubbing at Boreham Wood a fortnight ago.

Last Saturday's 2-1 home win over Eastbourne relieved some of the pressure, but he knows he needs some good Easter results - at home to Dorchester today (3pm) and at Weston-super-Mare on Monday (3pm) - to prevent a slide into the bottom half of the table.

Only then would he feel comfortable enough to give younger players a chance to shine on the Conference South stage.

"We've got a lot of promising youngsters - people like Sam Wilson, Ben Wilson, Matt Gray and Callum Casson - and if my remit was to finish fourth to bottom, they would have featured by now," he said.

"I didn't bring Will Aimson into the squad early in the season because I didn't think he was up to it. He's improved dramatically, but my remit has changed and I know I will have to get us promoted next season."

Therein lies the dilemma with youth development - not just at a club like Eastleigh but in the professional world too.

"Ask any Football League club with development and youth squads if their players of 16, 17 and 18 are up to playing in the Conference South and I guarantee you ten out of ten will say they're not," said Baird.

"I've seen Chelsea youth and they've got one player they paid millions for, but would he be outstanding in the Conference South? Our football is totally different to the way their football works.

"I'd love to play like development sides and pass, pass, pass but professional academies spend millions on their pitches. It's a totally different world.

"If we get a couple of productive results over Easter I will play some youngsters to have a look at them. We've got five or six with real potential.

"But what about next season when my remit is to get Eastleigh out of the Conference South? What do I do then?

Eastleigh will again be without hamstring victim Michael Green today and there are doubts over Elphick (ankle), Chris Flood (hip) and Scannell (knee/ankle).