HOW best to manage youth development is an on-going problem for our leading clubs. In this matter, and with the caveat that the other code's methods are not perfect - maybe Scottish fitba could learn a thing or two from Scottish Rugby.
I maybe ought to say, firstly, in Rugby Union, the Gentleman's game, in Scotland in particular, it still helps if you went to the "right" school. In Glasgow, if you went to the Academy, the High School, Kelvinside, St Al's or Hutchie, you are more-likely to get onto the development ladder than if you went to John Street, Crookston Castle, St Mungo's, or Holyrood.
In Edinburgh, chaps from Fettes, Merchie, the Academy, Watson's, Heriot's or Stew-Mel are more-likely to be noticed than boys from Forrester, Boroughmuir, Tynecastle, or Firhill Secondaries. In the sprawling Caledonian Region of Scottish Rugby - it's Dollar Academy, Morrison's, Dundee High School, Robert Gordon's and so-forth which are the rugby hot-beds, in spite of the brilliant tie-up between Bell-Baxter High School and Howe of Fife.
Of course, before the teachers' discovered the joys of having Saturday mornings to themselves back in the 1980s, there were similar stories of certain schools across Scotland producing more professionals than others.
Old-fashioned I might be, but, I think Scotland produced better players when schools football was the main starting point, than it has since the boys clubs took-on the initial development role. That said, clubs such as Hutcheson Vale, Gleniffer Thistle and the late-lamented Drumchapel Amateurs were as good football "finishing schools" as the big rugby-playing Edinburgh schools ever were in their code.
But, I digress slightly. Away from the top schools/FP club relationship in rugby, at club level, there is a system, which works, and which could be fettled for football.
Your average small town rugby club takes in boys (and increasingly girls) at about Primary Four level, and - if they are doing their job properly, and many are - they turn-out players aged 18 or 19 with a choice to make.
By that age, the ones likely to go on to the highest level of the club game, or even into professional contracts with Edinburgh or Glasgow, have already been identified and introduced to the SRU's elite Pathway scheme.
The ones who simply want to play for fun, for as long as they feel like it, will be ready to settle into the well-known rugby practice of playing the game to work-up a Saturday night thirst, while (still too-many) will have graduated to wine, women and song - and, there's nothing wrong with that.
But, most of them develop with the club where they started. Some, in the Pathway set-up, may leave a small club for a bigger one but, with regular mini and midi-rugby tournaments, which are structured to give everyone a game, there is no real need to do this.
Also, rugby tries very hard to make each game competitive. Particularly at that awkward time of the late teenage years, there are strictly-adhered to protocols which prevent callow youths from being ripped apart by adult players who are bigger, stronger and meaner.
Some smallish clubs have, in their youth development ranks, situations whereby they can field more than one squad at a particular age-group. This they do, there is no need to move clubs because you cannot get a game at your age group.
Then we come to adult development. Now, the two Scottish-based professional sides: Edinburgh and Glasgow Warriors are wholly-owned subsidiaries of the SRU, the governing body - so, the protocol is: Scotland comes first. In senior football in Scotland, particularly where a couple of Glasgow clubs are concerned - THEY come first, the needs of the Scotland team is an inconvenient nuisance.
Given a choice between recruiting a Scottish-born and coached player and one from England or overseas, I sense most top Scottish clubs would still, far-rather, recruit from outwith Scotland. They justify this by quoting EU laws which, according to the clubs, prevents them from operating a quota system, designed to ensure they have a mainly-Scots squads.
This claim is PURE BULL-SHIT. If the English Aviva Rugby Premiership can INSIST that each side's match-day squad had a minimum of 70% of the playrs "England-qualified", this rives a coach and horses through the SPFL's claims of "Eu Employment Law" allowing the likes of Inverness Caledonian Thistle or Celtic to field teams with nary a Scot in them.
Back in Scottish rugby, the two professional sides also have to agree to a draft system, which links every player on their books to one of the ten top "amateur" club sides in the BT Premiership. There is also, within this, an understanding whereby if one of the professionals was recruited from a specific club - within his professional side's catchment area, he remains linked to that club.
This means, for instance, if Glasgow and Scotland players Gordon Reid or Mark Bennett are coming back from injury and need game time, away from the pressures of the professional Pro12 League, then they can turn-out for Ayr, the club which nurtured them as boys. Edinburgh players who came from Hawick, or Melrose or Boroughmuir go back there if they need game time.
Boroughuir won the Scottish Cup last season, thanks in no small measure to the input from some Edinburgh fringe players who played more-often at Meggatland than they did at Murrayfield. Glasgow Hawks have a good smattering of fringe Glasgow players in their ranks, as does Stirling County.
The rugby teams are, it must also be stated, far-better at player rotation and game-time management than are our football teams.
But, to get back to my main point about youth development. In rugby, the younger professional players - the EDPs (Elite Development Professionals) train Monday to Friday with their professional club, then play on a Saturday with the amateur club with which they are linked.
Why could this not work in football? Young Celtic players, who have gone through the U-16, U-17, U-18, U-19 U-20 age groups, but, are not yet considered ready for the first-team squad. Their contemporaries at Hearts might be turning-out for Alloa, or Stirling Albion. The similar Aberdeen or Dundee or Dundee United kids could be playing for Montrose, or Brechin, or Forfar. I would suggest, they might learn more there than playing what little reserve team football is still played in Scotland.
Certainly, some younger players go out on-loan, but, this is a bit hit and miss. The rugby set-up is not ideal, but it is something akin to a system which does work, that in North American sport, whereby the Major League clubs send young players out to minor league affiliates to learn to be professionals.
Scottish football's development system isn't working, but, there are alternatives out there - so maybe we should investigate these. However, there remains one huge stumbling block, one with which we are all-too-familiar in Scotland.
If we suggested change, many would simply stand up and say: "Naw, naw son - it widnae work, it's AYE BEEN DONE this way. Ayebeenism, the biggest draw back to success in Scottish sport.
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