Who'd Be A Scottish Goalkeeper

IN MY YOUTH, I'd have given anything for just one game in-goals for Scotland. However, for several reasons, in particular as distinct lack of talent, it wasn't to be. So, on the basis of:

• Those who can do

• Those who no longer can – coach

• Those who never could – go into the press box and pontificate

So, here I am.

However, I care deeply about Scottish Fitba and in particular about our goalkeepers, a group of people who have been getting a bad press for years. What really upset me was, on Sunday morning, I read on the BBC Sport Scotland website, that Celtic were seeking to recruit Manchester City's German goalkeeper Stefan Ortega. He will be out of contract in Manchester at the end of this season, so City might be keen to cash-in by selling him in January.

Now, this story might be sheer pish – in the same paragraph they have Andy Robertson perhaps returning to Celtic Park as well. Let's look at the Ortega story for instance.

Celtic currently have:

1. Kasper Schmeichel, first-choice, 39 years old; 118 Danish caps; some 800 first-team games across his career.

2. Viljami Sinisalo, back-up, 24-year-old Finnish international, 4 caps.

3. Ross Doohan, third-choice, 27-year-old Scottish international, 1 cap.

So, given they have these three in-situ, ok, I accept, Schmeichel may have reached the stage in his career where it is time to let him go, but, to have two already-capped goalkeepers in thir mid to late twenties on the staff, what is the benefit of recruiting an uncapped 33-year-old – othr than, because we can possibly buy him?

They had another capped goalkeeper in Scott Bain, who played most of his 75 first-team games for Celtic during the early part of his time there. Then he was side-lined, before being allowed, age 33, to join Falkirk, where his form has seen him recalled to the Scotland squad.

Celtic used to give young goalkeepers their chance. The legend that is John Thomson was in the first-team while still effectively a boy. Willie Miller, another Celtic and Scotland back-stop, was – albeit in war-time – given his first-team chance at 17. Dick Beattie was another teen-aged debutant who made the position his own, winning Under-23 caps and being in-goals for the legendary 7-1 League Cup Final. He was succeeded by another teenager, Frank Haffey.

Ignore Wembley 1961 and “nearly ten past Haffey” - big Frank was still a very-good goalkeeper, capable of stunning saves. Jimmy Armfield, England's right-back that day and later one of the most-respected football writers in the country said of that day: “it is unfair to blame Frank, his defenders that day made far-more mistakes than he did.” But that day meant, aged only 22, Frank Haffey was history.

Packie Bonner was another who was thrown-in as a boy, just 18 when he made the first of his record 641 appearances for the first team. OK, Bonner was there for ever, Ronnie Simpson was referred to as “Faither” by the rest of the Lisbon Lions, while more recently, Joe Hart and Schmeichel have helped raise the average age of the first-team squad.

Now, the Ortega to Celtic story may well be nothing more than the product of a football writer's vivid imagination, but, given how stupid the world of football recruitment now is, he may well be recruited in January.

However, the Celtic B squad, a squad currently languishing in ninth place in the 18-club Scottish Lowland League has, this season, listed seven goalkeepers, all under-20, some out on-loan to one of the Diddy Teams. That is taking bulk buying to extremes, it also, to my mind, poses questions of Celtic's recruitment policies.

I am not having a go at Celtic here, I have long thought the way our clubs recruit, educate and develop footballers has been lacking in the extreme. The fall-out rate of wannabe footballers from Scotland is a national embarrassment, and one which sadly, shows no sign of improvement in either the short or longer term.

But, should the Ortega story develop, it would be typical of the cack-handed way we run our game up here.

I have already had my say on the desperate state Stevie Clarke finds himself in because we have so-few front-line Scottish goalkeepers these days. This latest Celtic rumour merely underlines how badly Scottish Football's High Heid Yins have mismanaged our player development and progress over the years – particularly when it comes to goalkeepers.