The legendary Lost Boys of 1989
ENGLAND has just won the European Under-21 Championships, well done to them. Unfortunately, I don't see a lot of the members of the winning team going on to have distinguished careers in English football. I might be wrong in this, but, given how, in the top-flight of the English domestic game, with most of the clubs now being foreign-owned and managed, English players are what is known in the animal world as “An Endangered Species” very few of these lads will go on to become household names I fear.
The win was England's first at this level since 1984. So, I thought I'd go back and have a look at what happened to that victorious team from 39 years ago. Back then, the final was a two-legged affair, as with this year: England v Spain.
England won the first leg, in Seville, 1-0; future Rangers star Mel Sterland scored the goal and the England team was: Hucker (Queen's Park Rangers); Sterland (Sheffield Wednesday), Thomas (Tottenham Hotspur), Bracewell (Stoke City), Watson, (Norwich City), Stevens (Brighton & Hove Albion), Callaghan (Watford), Gayle (Birmingham City), Hateley (Portsmouth), Hodge (Nottingham Forest), Brock (Oxford United). Sub used: D'Avray (Ipswich Town).
For the second leg, at Sheffield United's Bramall Lane, which England won 2-0, Gary Bailey of Manchester United was in goals, with Neil Pickering of Sunderland at left back, David Mountfield of Everton at left-half, while Danny Wallace of Southampton got 20 minutes off the bench.
So, England used 16 players in that two-legged final. Of these Bailey (2 caps), Bracewell (3), Hateley (32), Hodge (24), Sterland (1), Stevens (7), Thomas (1), Wallace (1) and Watson (12) went on to win full England caps.
To have 9 players from 16 used train-on to win full caps is a better than average result from an age group side – that's a 56.25% conversion rate, Iwonder how this current title-winning England side will measure-up by the time their careers are over, I would forecast, not as well.
What, I hear you ask, has sent old Socrates down that particular lane? Well, it followed a conversation I had this week with one of my fellow coffin dodgers. He spends a lot of his time just now watching his grandson's sporting progress. This youngster is the son of a former Scottish Schools Under-15 cap, who went down the road straight from school, but was back up it fairly-quickly. He did enjoy a reasonable career in the lower Scottish Leagues, but, he never achieved his potential.
With his father's experience to guide him, the kid is not apparently putting all his eggs in his football basket – he is also a nationally-ranked athlete. However, his grandfather tells me, he has had to move schools – the SFA now wants their more-promising youngsters “hot-housed” in regional Schools of Football. He is in the Academy of a Scottish Premiership club, but, like his grandfather Ah hae Ma doots about this system.
According to my informant, the club seems only interested in the two or three players in the group who are showing real potential, the rest are there to make-up the numbers.
Back in 1984, Scotland had qualified for the quarter-finals, where we lost to Yugoslavia. This time round, we finished fourth in our five nation qualifying group, managing just one win from our eight games, when we beat bottom side Kazakhstan.
I cannot honestly say we have gone backwards in the past 40 years, but, I reckon we have, at best, stood still over that period and we have to ask ourselves:
Is this acceptable?
Is it good enough?
Writing the above sent me back to the record book, to see just how Scotland has done in this particular championship, since the first, back in 1978.
Back then, we lost-out to what was then Czechoslovakia on goal difference, after we had tied at the top of the qualifying group.
We improved in the 1980s, when we were a power in Europe at this level:
1980 – quarter-finalists
1982 – semi-finalists, lost 1-2 to England
1984 – semi-finalists
1986 – failed to get out of the qualifying group
1988 – quarter-finalists.
The 1990s began badly, when we failed to get out of the qualifying group in 1990. This then became something of a roller coaster decade:
1992 – semi-finalists lost 0-1 to Sweden
1994 – failed to get out of the qualifying round
1996 – finished fourth, lost to France in the third/fourth play-off
1998 – failed to get out of the qualifying round
The 2000s have been a disaster. We have competed in 13 Under-21 Championships; we reached the play-off rounds in 2004 and again in 2011, otherwise, in 2000, 2002, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2013, 2015, 2017, 2019, 2021 and 2023 we have failed to get out of our qualifying group.
Overall, we have won 76 of the 192 games we have played in these championships, that's a winning percentage of 39.6%. We have also accrued just 47.4% of the available points.
I appreciate, taking it from just one tournament, between 1976 and 1979 is in many ways an unfair comparison, however, in that initial tournament, we had a 50% win record and accrued 58.3% of the available points – that's our base line.
We have contested 23 Under-21 Championships since that initial tournament and in only 8 of those have we equalled or bettered that initial 50% wins performance. In the 11 tournaments between 1978 and 2000 we posted a 42.9% winning record and accrued 49.6% of the available points.
In the 12 tournaments of this third millennium, we have won only 37% of the matches and accrued a mere 45.7% of the available points. We haven't reached the sharp end of the tournament in 27 years, indeed the last Scotland Under-21 squad to play a meaningful game in Europe – that third-place play-off against France back in 1996 was: Derek Stillie (Aberdeen), Scott Marshall (Arsenal), Jackie McNamara (Celtic), Steven Pressley, Christian Dailly (both Dundee United), Jamie Fullarton (St Mirren), Stephen Crawford (Raith Rovers), Charlie Miller (Rangers), Jim Hamilton (Dundee), Simon Donnelly (Celtic), Allan Johnston (Heart of Midlothian), Colin Meldrum (Kilmarnock), Stuart Gray (Celtic), Martin Baker (St Mirren), Stephen Glass (Aberdeen), Neil Murray (Rangers), Andy Liddell (Barnsley), Brian McLaughlin (Celtic).
Of these 18 players, only 8 (44.4%) - McNamara, Pressley, Dailly, Crawford, Miller, Donnelly, Johnston and Glass went on to win even one full cap.
Of the French squad which beat us – 11 players, including the likes of Patrick Vieira, Claude Makélélé, Robert Pires and Sylvain Wiltord (that's 61.1%) trained-on to win full caps.
So, quite clearly, we've been getting it wrong for years, which speaks volumes for the way Stevie Clarke has galvanised our big team, given the foundations are crumbling. However, if we are not bringing through the talent to replace the big names when they depart, I can see us continuing to stagnate internationally.
We've either been marking time or going backwards for years, is it too much to hope for enlightenment striking the numpties along the sixth floor corridor at Hampden and things improving for young, home-grown Scottish talent.
Which brings me back to the youngster whose grandfather got me thinking. Doesn't he and his contemporaries deserve a better shot at glory than they are getting?
I finish with what I think is an interesting aside on this. Scott Marshall and Neil Murray, from the 1996 squad which lost to France were also two of the legendary “Lost Boys” - the squad which Craig Brown managed to the 1989 FIFA Under-16 World Cup Final, where they were robbed of victory by a clearly over-age Saudi Arabia team. Only three members of that fantastic Scotland squad – Andy McLaren, Brian O'Neil and Paul Dickov trained-on to become full caps.
Scottish football: plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.”
No comments:
Post a Comment