IN WHAT, in my 76th year I can now see as a previous life, I for a time worked the Scottish end of a national Sunday newspaper's weekly “Where are they now?” column. I would be sent a photograph of a successful team from the past, and it was my job to find out what had happened to the players, and, as it says on the tin – reveal where they were at the time of writing.
One of the more-enjoyable to write of such pieces was on “The Lost Boys,” the legendary squad which lost to: “Saudi Arabia Under-23s” in the FIFA World Under-16 Championships. That particular squad has, up till now, been widely-regarded as Scotland's most-successful age group squad. There seems little doubt that the Saudis drove a camel train through the age rules for that competition, even less doubt that, since money talks, FIFA will never mount a meaningful investigation of the events and perhaps retrospectively disqualify the cheating Saudis and give the title to the Scots.
Tough, but, that's where Scotland now lies in the world of football – the nation which gave the game form is now a small, mid-table, European nation.
Just this week, however, there emerged a genuine challenge to The Lost Boys' right to be considered our best-ever squad. That came courtesy of wee Pat Nevin's labour of love: “The Lost Final,” which aired on BBC Scotland over the weekend.
This story, 40 years on, of the triumph of the European Under-18 Champions was just the sort of programme BBC Shortbread ought to be doing more of. But, since they have to ask London's permission to go to the toilet, I don't see the high heid yins at Pacific Quay rushing to commission further, similar programmes.
Craig Brown, who managed The Lost Boys, told me when I did the story: “This was the best-prepared Scottish squad ever.” Ernie Walker and the SFA, The Scottish Schools FA, the clubs to whom the boys were aligned, the various schools, all were on the same page – the Scotland squad had to be given the best-possible chance of going far in the competition.
“Bleeper Brown's” unspoken point was – what might Scotland be able to do if every Scotland squad got that sort of backing. That point came across too in “The Lost Final,” Scotland had to travel to Finland for the final tournament minus three key men, Aberdeen's Bryan Gunn, Neale Cooper and Eric Black, all of whom were in the Dons' Scottish Cup Final squad and not released to travel.
Another point of similarity between the two squads is – both groups are considered relative failures, in that success at age group level didn't transfer to success at full international level.
The
Scotland "Lost Boys" squad was: -
Goalkeepers: Jim Will (Arsenal), Martin Dickson (Kilmarnock).
Defenders: Billy Dolan, James Beattie (both Celtic), Eddie Conville, Tom McMillan (both Dundee United), Kevin Bain (Dundee), Scott Marshall (Arsenal).
Midfielders: Gary Bolan, John Lindsay, Andy McLaren (all Dundee United), Neil Murray, David Hagen (both Rangers), Brian O'Neil (Celtic), Ian Downie (Aberdeen).
Forwards: Craig Flannigan (Rangers), Kevin McGoldrick (Greenock Morton), Paul Dickov (Arsenal).
Eighteen players, of whom only McLaren (1 cap), O'Neil (7 caps) and Dickov (10 caps) made it all the way to winning full caps. That's a conversion rate of 17%.
The Scotland "Lost Final" squad was: -:
Goalkeepers: Robin Rae (Hibernian), Ian Westwater (Heart of Midlothian).
Defenders: Dave Beaumont, Gary McGinnis (both Dundee United), Jim McInally (Celtic), John Philliben (Stirling Albion), Dave Rennie (Leicester City).
Midfielders: Dave Bowman (Hearts), Brian Rice (Hibernian), Paul McStay, Jim Dobbin (both Celtic), Gary Mackay (Heart of Midlothian), Ally Dick (Tottenham Hotspur).
Forwards: Pat Nevin (Clyde), Billy Livingstone (Wolverhampton Wanderers), Sammy McGivern (Kilmarnock).
Sixteen players, of whom only McInally (10 caps), Bowman (6 caps), McStay (76 caps), Mackay (4 caps), Nevin (28 caps) made it all the way to winning full caps. That's a conversion rate of 31%.
If success is measured only in the conversion from age group to full caps, then it doesn't look great, however, quite a few members of both squads went on to have reasonable to good club careers. One or two are still involved in the game, but for a few of them, that youthful success was the end of the story.
However, what the low conversion rate does show is, a good kid doesn't necessarily become a good adult player – the road to football success is a rocky one. For instance, one father of one of The Lost Boys puts his son's failure to make it in football down to: “He shared a flat with Duncan Ferguson.” The same kid has, however, since gone on to run his own successful company outside football, and, he's not the only Lost Boy to prosper away from the game.
Another good anecdote I got from doing my where are they now piece came up when one of The Lost Boys recalled watching Portugal playing in the European Championships, with a squad built around the Portuguese Under-16 team which had lost to Scotland. He was watching the game during his meal break at his job in a supermarket company's warehouse. One of the other workers asked: “Did Scotland not beat Portugal in the Youth World Cup” and was amazed to discover, he was sitting at the same table as one of that winning Scotland team.
Football is a bit like life. You start off as one of the new boys – you rise through the ranks at your age group – then you go out into the real world, and you're a newbie again. You climb through the ranks, and, at some point you find your level – not everyone makes it to the top.
A book which I have and am fond of quoting is The Scottish Schools FA's Schoolboy International Who's Who. The cover contains head shots of 12 Scottish footballing legends who were Schoolboy Internationalists.
But, as an experiment, I let it fall open, at a couple of random pages. Sixty players are listed there, on whom only Peter Lorimer, Lou Macari, Dave Mackay and Gary Mackay went on to win full caps; that's a 7% conversion rate from schoolboy to full cap. Mind you, those two pages also included the names of Jim Leishman “the Laird o' Fife” as he is now known, John Lindsay from The Lost Boys, man of many clubs Billy Little and former Motherwell and Scotland Under-23 goalkeeper Keith Macrae. So, not every player on that page failed to make a ripple in the football pond.
The trick, which thus far has evaded the best brains in Scottish football is – how do we turn these tiny ripples into a bloody great tsunami, to carry Scotland back to the top of the world rankings for the first time in a century or more? Once we get into the top ten of European nations, we can perhaps start to think of winning European Championships and World Cups.
There are a couple of main obstacles to player development by Scottish clubs – other than the main one, which is the reluctance of the clubs to trust their young players. Alan Hansen's Doctrine: “You win nothing with kids,” has many disciples within Scottish football.
This leads to the first problem – FEAR. Club officials are scared to go down the youth path, in case their club gets relegated, while club managers are similarly scared, in case they get sacked. So, rather than go with the promising kids, they hang onto tried and tested and often bang average older players.
The second problem is – ENGLISH FOOTBALL. For all their greater numbers, English football is probably even worse than Scotland at bringing through talent, but, for well over 100 years, when an English team is in bother and needs an injection of talent – they have tended to look north.
OK, I accept, at least in the English Premiership and the top half of their Championship, today they tend to recruit from overseas, but, such is the financial imbalance between football on either side of the Solway, even lower league English clubs can now cherry-pick promising young Scots away from their original clubs.
Now too, when a Scottish club needs to recruit, more and more they are looking to anywhere but Scotland for the new blood. I put the blame for this squarely on the shoulders of Graeme Souness, until he arrived at Ibrox, Scottish clubs recruiting non-Scots happened as often as comets visited the earth. Gradually, since then, home Scots have been elbowed aside in the clubs' rush to recruit non-Scots.
This has had an effect on young player development. For instance, by checking through my latest edition of the Football Yearbook (Rothman's to us old-timers), I discover:
Since Souness arrived at Rangers, 60 Rangers youngsters have won Scotland Under-21 caps.
Of these, only 20 went on to win full Scotland caps
4 of these players had to leave Rangers to win full caps.
Since Souness arrived at Rangers, 58 Celtic youngsters have won Scotland Under-21 caps.
Of these, 21 went on to win full caps
3 of these players had to leave Celtic to win full caps.
When you see our two leading sides faring so badly in converting their best young talent into international players, it makes you wonder.
Notice something about that European Championship squad; of the 16 players, only three were Celtic players, none were with Rangers. However, quite a few of them were already first-team regulars with their clubs. Today, it is rare indeed to see 18-year-olds featuring in Scottish first teams.
I feel, if we are ever to get back to the days of being competitive on the European stage, we need to find a way to unleash our young talent.
Let's have a wee bit of left-field thinking. Here's my offering:
Since the League Cup competition does not offer European qualification for the winners, maybe the SPFL could make it a “Scottish players only” competition. Every player in every team in that competition had to be 'Scotland-Qualified.'
In the cause of young player development, they could go further and make it, like the Olympic Games football tournament, primarily for Under-23 players.
I would also invoke Chick Young's 'Eight Diddies Rule,' whereby only three non-Scots could be fielded in any domestic Scottish game. I don't see how this would infringe employment laws, clubs which wished to emply non-Scots could still do so, but, they could only ever have three of them on the park at any one time in domestic Scottish games. That way, we would be pro-actively encouraging the development of young Scottish talent and perhaps finding our way into more finals.
However, I am not holding my breath in anticipation of this, constructive, forward thinking has never been a given when it comes to the high heid yins of the game in Scotland.
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