JOCK Stein used to insist that Scotland's national dress wasn't the kilt - it was the boiler suit - and he certainly insisted on a high work rate on the park and on the training ground from his sides.
Today, I don't think Scottish football works hard enough across the board. I don't just mean the so-called professionals, whose working day begins at 10.30 am and is over two hours later, four days per week, before, if they're picked, comprising 90 minutes on a Saturday, Sunday or Monday night, depending on the demands of the ESPN/Sky paymasters.
No I mean everyone, from the guys running the Under-11 boys club teams right up to Craig Levein.
I was lucky enough to go to a school which played both football and rugby. In Ayrshire when I was growing up there there were two types of secondary schools - junior and senior secondaries. The senior secondaries: Ardrossan, Ayr, Cumnock, Irvine Royal and Kilmarnock Academies, Marr College, Speirs School and St Joseph's and St Michael's RC Academies were all six year schools; the junior secondaries took everyone else up to the age of 15, in their home villages. The brighter kids were, at 11+ hived off to the relevant senior secondary, the less-bright stayed in their home town, but, there was a system in place whereby, late developers could stay on at the senior secondary until they were 18.
Of the nine senior secondaries, the two RC schools only played football, while of the other seven, only Cumnock and Irvine Royal played both football and rugby; I went to Cumnock, so I had the chance to play both codes.
There were teachers at each of these schools who were unofficial scouts and agents for junior and senior football clubs or were recruiting sergeants for the local rugby clubs - there were a few boys clubs, Saxone in Kilmarnock being the top dogs, but, by and large the next generation of footballers learned the game in the play ground or with the school team.
Today school football and rugby is a pale shadow of the past, youth development is either in the hands of the clubs through the pro-youth scheme or through the various boys club teams affiliated to the SYFA.
A little learning might be a dangerous thing, but I suggest that since the teachers were side-lined after the industrial unrest of the early eighties, escalating a decline which had started during the rise of boys club football in the mid-to-late sixties, the decline of Scottish football has accelerated pro rata.
Schools rugby was also hit by the teachers' strikes. OK this had little effect on the public schools, which, thanks to their links to Murrayfield have carried-on as before, but, it meant that the smaller clubs had to get their act together to keep going, since the recruiting sergeants were either retiring or increasingly finding other things to do of a Saturday, rather than running rugby.
So began the rise of the Mini and Midi sections, which meant that, from the age of seven or eight, kids were inside the club, wearing the strip, being coached by the first team players, getting to know them.
Ayr RFC have been one of the best examples of making this work. Ayr were a junior club 50 years ago, they didn't get into the then unofficial championship until 1967, today, they are one of the top clubs in Scotland - indeed their feat in reaching the last eight of this season's British and Irish Cup is a beacon of shining light midst the otherwise despair and gloom of this season.
While Ayr were scrambling to establish themselves in the top flight in rugby, taking heavy beatings from Gala, Hawick and Heriot's, Ayr United under Ally MacLeod's first spell in charge were a force in the land.
Today the situation is reversed - Ayr RFC is arguably the third force behind the two SRU-funded fully-professional sides - Dundee United or Hearts if you like, while Ayr United are in the Irn Bru Second Division, the 24th or 25th best team in Scotland.
Ayr RFC go out there and actively recruit then coach boys, Ayr United, like so many Scottish clubs, hope the cream will rise to the top and they can syphon off enough to survive. To be fair to Brian Reid and his coaches, there is an Academy system at Somerset Park which is, for their level, a good one, but, I would suggest -compared to how Ayr RFC run their youth development programme, Ayr United isn't doing as well.
The Ayr RFC captain, Damien "Skippy" Kelly, a giant Australian, spends Monday to Friday promoting rugby in local schools, he organises the Ayrshire Schools Cup and actively sells rugby in schools locally. Glen Tippett, another Ayr first team squad member is the SRU's Youth Development Officer for the area. Between them these two guys, who are on-show in the first team on a Saturday, are out there selling rugby to the school kids from Monday to Friday.
Ayr United don't have that profile locally and it's showing - you'll see as much pink and black, the rugby club's colours, in Ayr these days as you will United's traditional black and white.
Ayr RFC's current first team squad contains Mark Bennett, who at 18 is already in the Scotland Under-20 side and is seen as "the next big thing" in Scottish rugby - he will play for Glasgow Warriors next season. There is also Mark Beckwith, another 18-year-old in the Scotland age group programme while 17-year schoolboy Robbie Fergusson scored a try in Ayr's British and Irish Cup quarter-final at Bristol on Sunday and is another being hotly-tipped for the top. Another half dozen Under-21 players have featured in the Ayr first team this season.
Ayr United don't have any youngsters of that quality and while admittedly Bennett and Beckwith came through the club development programmes at Cumnock and Marr respectively, they were on Ayr's radar at an early age and passed on readily by the junior clubs - their advance I submit shows that rugby is doing better than football and finding and developing young talent.
I've just finished that excellent book by Michael Grant and Rob Robertson 'The Management', all about Scotland's great managers, past and present. In that book is set out a staunch defence of "the Largs Mafia".
OK, I'm now convinced, the Largs system works in producing good coaches; the SFA's system is respected across world football and some terrific coaches, not least Ferguson and Mourinho have come through the ranks there.
So, why aren't we doing better at youth development? Why is our standing at world and European level so low? I can only conclude it's in the quality, or lack of it, in the people actually running our clubs and the SFA.
Example 1 - George Peat, President, the SFA. How did he get there? dunno.
What is his football experience? Ran Airdrie into the ground, then switched to Stenhousemuir to protect his SFA place?
Best-known for? Bringing a plastic dinosaur to a press conference and falling-out with everyone, particularly Celtic.
Example 2 - Ian McLauchlan, President the SRU. 43 international caps for Scotland, captain 19 times; eight caps for the British & Irish Lions, captained the Lions in non-Test games. Known across the world as "Mighty Mouse". Scored winning try in First Lions' Test v New Zealand in 1971; member of "the Invincibles", the unbeaten British Lions in South Africa in 1974. Former pe teacher, then ran his own pr company. During his playing career he was known as the most technically-proficient player in his position of loose-head prop, frequently destroying much bigger men in the scrum.
Not a lot between them really.
To go back to Ayr, Ayr RFC's Director of Rugby is Jock Craig, a former first team player, who, but for illness would have played for Scotland. He's been 50 years at the club. All the club officials are former players. At Ayr United, the only director who used to play is Alex Ingram. OK, "Dixie" is an iconic figure in the town, but when it comes to service to the club, commitment, any measurement you like - again Ayr United comes a poor second to the rugby club.
EXCEPT in one crucial area. For all the rugby club's work, for all their recent success - the Premiership in 2009, the Scottish Cup in 2010 - still in the mix for a possible league and cup double in 2011 - Ayr United, even in the Second Division, carries a bigger core support than the rugby club.
Football will always be the top sport in Scotland - it's just that right now the lunatics are running the asylum.
It has long been said that Mr Peat is a very forthright character who exerts control with a blunt authority and a rod of Scottish steel. (Does anyone remember Scottish Steel?, they used to be quite big in these parts)
ReplyDeleteIt is an important singularity that must logically force others to be acquiescent when in his rather dreary company. When I went to school (whit school you fae?) Mr Peat’s behaviour was also known as blatant bullying.
Let us also remember it was Mr Peat who instigated Henry McLeish’s Scottish Football Review, and he has so often talked about taking the game forward. How is that then George? Funny handshakes, leather aprons and toad licking sessions perhaps?
His intentions might have come from a laudable ambition, but some still find him “headstrong” to work with. An arrogant domineering bully perhaps?
Peat’s contrariness has long been evident in many of his public comments, which often took the form of ridiculous outbursts. A ranting, arrogant, domineering bully in other words. On becoming president in 2007, he once infamously described Flower of Scotland, an unofficial national anthem favoured by the proud travelling Tartan Army, as “a tiresome dirge”. Sound familiar at all? Dare I say bigotry towards certain parts of Scotland in general? Surely not, after all, he does have a very nice MCC tie in his wardrobe too.
An accountant by profession, he spent over 20 years at Airdrie but left rather hurriedly during the years the club wanted to build a new stadium after selling Broomfield. He then became a director at Stenhousemuir, while enjoying, shall we say, ‘a rather cosy Masonic influence at the SFA,’ where he was treasurer.
Mr Peat was also one of seven members of the SFA international committee that, in 1997, ruled that Scotland should carry out a World Cup qualifying tie on the day of Princess Diana’s funeral, a decision which was later overwhelmingly overturned. ‘A bit of a dropped ball there Georgie boy, eh?’ Can you see a pattern forming here?
Anyone watching that awfie cringing moment when Mr Peat ‘let his hair down’ and walked into that press conference in 2010 with a Tyrannosaurus Rex hidden behind his back will also remember the embarrassed tittering from the sycophantic pressmen gathered to hear his latest rant. Oh George, perhaps you are human after all is said and done. Prehistoric is a fair précis of the gentleman in question, his decisions, his bigotry, and most of his ineptitude when it comes to dealing with fair decisions in football.
Of course the real downfall of Mr Peat’s career must always be blamed on that lot over at Parkhead; you know the ones, tiresome, full of paranoia, unable to accept their place in Scottish society, basically the shite on the great shoe of brotherhood life. It must be a difficult decision for Mr Peat as each day he rises from the ground and faces a difficult decision on which of his collection of the bluest of blue ties he should wear to a disciplinary hearing.
I’m sure that there is a place in society for the charming Mr Peat and his strange habitual tactics in regard to football and Celtic FC in general. May I suggest beneath the goalmouth in front of the Jock Stein end?
If you listen very carefully, you might even be able to hear Jock Stein still spinning in his own grave.
Me paranoid? nawww.