TRANMERE ROVERS took a little time out from a daunting schedule of two long distance away games this week to celebrate the 70th birthday of enduring Prenton Park hero Warwick Rimmer.
Manager Les Parry is prepared to speculate that without Rimmer’s remarkable success in developing young players as head of youth development over two decades, Rovers would have gone out of business years ago.
“Warwick’s role in the club is simply massive,” Parry said.
“I respect Warwick Rimmer more than any other person in football. I have worked with him for 20 years and his impact at this particular football club has meant we are still in existence.
“He has brought millions of pounds into the club by identifying young talent, nurturing that talent, developing players, putting them into the first-team and allowing us to profit from players when we sell them.
“His record is absolutely fantastic, the equal of anyone in football.”
At least four of the players on the team-sheet for Tranmere’s League One game at Charlton Athletic tomorrow will be products of the youth development system Rimmer set up at the request of chairman Peter Johnson in 1987.
Rimmer, who continues to work for Tranmere on a part-time basis, developed scores of players for first-team football down the years raising, at a conservative estimate, more than £14 million in transfer fees from home-grown talent.
Parry said: “If Warwick had not come to Tranmere all those years ago, it is questionable whether we would still be in existence because a club like ours needs the income from selling players.
“He has earned his salary over the years and if he was paid for another 100 years he would still earn it. People from clubs the length and breadth of the country know about Warwick and respect him. He is 70 and he’s still in here every day.”
Shaun Garnett, the first trainee to work under Rimmer’s regime in 1987, is now Tranmere’s head of youth.
He said: “Warwick is a legend at this club.”
Dale Jennings, one of the latest success stories to emerge from the youth set-up, is providing Parry with a dilemma for tomorrow’s match at The Valley.
The exciting teenage prospect is fit after shaking off a groin injury and available for selection, as is midfielder Josh Labadie after completing a two-match suspension.
But Parry is habitually reluctant to change a side that performs well – and the manager was delighted with Tranmere’s efforts in securing a 1-1 draw at Exeter City in midweek.
“Tuesday was a massive result for us,” Parry said.
“We were on the back of three defeats and if we had been beaten again we would have been going to Charlton looking down the barrel of five consecutive defeats.
“I was delighted for the lads. They put a lot of hard work in and deserved what they got.
“It can be difficult to break a sequence and very often it takes a performance like Exeter where the lads really dug in.”
Parry added: “We have Joss available for Saturday and I don’t know what I’ll do with him after the lads did so well at Exeter.
“It’s a nice problem to have.
“Dale Jennings is training with the first team again and he is a possibility for the game.”
Just to complicate matters further, young front-man Lucas Akins reacted to being left out the senior starting line-up by scoring a hat-trick for the reserves against Accrington Stanley on Wednesday (see report below).
While Tranmere were halting a losing sequence at the Grecians, Charlton suffered a fourth defeat in succession at the hands of Carlisle United at home on Tuesday.
The poor run pushed the Addicks five points adrift of the play-off zone.
