SFA are selling our kids a future that doesn't exist in the game

[pete 2,499]

I am putting this in here as I believe it is also Rangers related and open for Rangers dicussion.

 

 

 

Gordon Parks: SFA are selling our kids a future that doesn't exist in the game

 

10:34, 18 June 2015

By Gordon Parks

 

GORDON reckons there's serious cracks in Scottish football's youth structure and says the SFA are selling youths a false dream.

SNS Group Celtic celebrate after being crowned champions of Little Big Shot Scottish Youth Cup

Celtic won the Scottish Youth Cup but Gordon Parks doesn't think any player on show will have a career at their current club

 

FURTHER serious cracks in the SFA’s Club Academy 
Scotland structure have appeared after Clyde washed their hands of it.

 

The Bully Wee are one of 
the first to a call a halt to this conveyor belt of nonsense.

 

Blink and you may have missed the news last week that the Broadwood club disbanded their entire youth system and opted out of the Hampden-led national player development programme.

 

Why? Because it doesn’t deliver an end product and has become a dishonest dream chaser for kids, their parents and the downright delusional who mistakenly believe it’s a pathway to stardom.

 

Don’t take my word for it – Clyde chairman John Alexander insists it was morality rather than money which triggered his club’s decision to bin six teams from Under-11 to 17.

 

He said: “The issue for us wasn’t economics, it was the belief we were being dishonest to kids and their parents. They were buying into something we couldn’t do – develop them into first-team players.

 

“They weren’t at the standard to play fourth-tier professional football, but we aren’t unique.”

 

Ain’t that the truth. Scottish football is saturated with 
young players being squeezed into pro-youth programmes where the focus on being handed funding comes 
before development.

 

Clyde aren’t the first to cut their losses. Arbroath withdrew from Club Academy Scotland last season citing an inability to sustain the model.

 

It’s an initiative which is all about box ticking and passing specific criteria, it’s based on finance before football. Why else would a part-time club want a bloated, hard-to-sustain youth academy? For the answer follow the money.

 

Despite thousands of kids going through Clyde’s set-up, they’ve admitted not one has emerged as a first-team regular.

 

They’ve only brought one all the way from Under-13 into the first team. That was a lad called Fraser McGhee who, after a few games, was deemed not up to standard and released this summer.

 

I have stated regularly on here that I believed the whole youth(grass root) system is wrong in Scotland. While I believe the end of school football was the beginning of the problem i do not believe that starting school football again is the way forward.

Scotland should look at the Dutch model. There should be a football club in every area. For example if I look at Partick then there should be a club where there are many senior teams from a 1st team which plays at a high amateur\junior level down to the guy's that just want to kick a ball about. A club like that can also have a youth set-up with many teams for every age group so that everyone can play at their own level. There is a small town called Oldenzaal near where I live and the local team have 20+ senior teams and also many teams for every age group. These clubs these days even have handicapped teams and even worse than that womans football;)2. The whole club is a community club. Generations of a family have been attached to that club and will bring their children to join it. Scouts go and watch the top teams at every level to see what talent is on show. I have said this often on here. I can't believe a team like Renfrew juniors has no youth system, no amateur system no community system. That goes for all junior or amateur teams. That pyramid system is why the Dutch keep producing great players.

[26th of foot 5,834]

I am not going to comment on the current youth system because it's a decade since I regularly took in games at that level. I see a couple of matches a season, usually at the business end of the Youth Cup and that's the equivalent of a few photographic stills of a two hour DVD.

 

Here, in deepest, darkest Lanarkshire in the 60s and 70s, it was often heard, "throw a blanket out of the window and it'll land on two or three Scottish internationals". There was a conveyer belt of talent. The game was a constant; schools' football was vibrant, the Boys' and amateur game remained in good health. Lanarkshire amateurs had a dozen divisions, each of 16 teams. We all played 2-3 games a weekend, The base, underpinning the entire pyramid was schools football, all that weekend activity began at 09.00hrs on the Saturday morning. All those teachers and janitors gave up their time, nurturing the continuous flow. Failure to acknowledge and pay the peppercorn remuneration required for this necessary extra curricular activity, was the beginning of a 30-35 year slow decline.

[Chibmark 15]

I'm currently a coach for a U10 (2005) boys team playing in the East Dunbartonshire league.

 

We went from 'Fun 4's' to 'uncompetitive' 7-a-side last year and it's all pretty well organised. 7-a-side is all about development and letting the boys (and girls) play football without the pressure of winning though every kid on the pitch knows what the score is and some of them show a real desire to win and nothing puts me on a downer more than getting a hefty going over by some of the teams you come up against!

 

I'm just a volunteer and I've done some coaching badges (early touches course) and I try my best but do hope that our boys progress to a 'better' team so they can get coached by someone who's better at it than me. I try my best but I just don't have enough time to become better at Coaching and feel like I'm doing our better kids a disservice but I can only try my best.

 

Being in the North Glasgow area, we have the Euromillions funded "Weir Foundation" who are doing work on behalf of Partick Thistle and are named "Partick Thistle in the Community" and they basically go out and 'poach' the better boys and form a bit of a league select.

 

The plan is for these boys to progress to pro-youth and then go to one of the SFA performance schools which are dotted throughout the country. You get picked up at 7am and head off to school. Before school starts you train in the morning, 3 hours at school, 2 hours training, 3 hours school, another hourse training and then off home at 6pm. It's a lot of football but this was Mark Wotte's idea (so I've been told)

 

I know of a few boys who go to these schools and it's pretty cut-throat. If you go and after a year, you're not progressing then you get dropped. My cousin's 2 boys were at St Mirren pro-youth, the older one hit a bit of a rut and got booted out even though he's been a good performer with them for 4 years! The younger one has been approached about attending a Performance school but again, you could be heading off to a new school to make new friends, then after 6 months, you get told to leave and go to a new school where you need to make new friends again and it could really knock a young lads confidence both socially and football-wise too.

[pmu 0]

I'm currently a coach for a U10 (2005) boys team playing in the East Dunbartonshire league.

 

We went from 'Fun 4's' to 'uncompetitive' 7-a-side last year and it's all pretty well organised. 7-a-side is all about development and letting the boys (and girls) play football without the pressure of winning though every kid on the pitch knows what the score is and some of them show a real desire to win and nothing puts me on a downer more than getting a hefty going over by some of the teams you come up against!

 

I'm just a volunteer and I've done some coaching badges (early touches course) and I try my best but do hope that our boys progress to a 'better' team so they can get coached by someone who's better at it than me. I try my best but I just don't have enough time to become better at Coaching and feel like I'm doing our better kids a disservice but I can only try my best.

 

Being in the North Glasgow area, we have the Euromillions funded "Weir Foundation" who are doing work on behalf of Partick Thistle and are named "Partick Thistle in the Community" and they basically go out and 'poach' the better boys and form a bit of a league select.

 

The plan is for these boys to progress to pro-youth and then go to one of the SFA performance schools which are dotted throughout the country. You get picked up at 7am and head off to school. Before school starts you train in the morning, 3 hours at school, 2 hours training, 3 hours school, another hourse training and then off home at 6pm. It's a lot of football but this was Mark Wotte's idea (so I've been told)

 

I know of a few boys who go to these schools and it's pretty cut-throat. If you go and after a year, you're not progressing then you get dropped. My cousin's 2 boys were at St Mirren pro-youth, the older one hit a bit of a rut and got booted out even though he's been a good performer with them for 4 years! The younger one has been approached about attending a Performance school but again, you could be heading off to a new school to make new friends, then after 6 months, you get told to leave and go to a new school where you need to make new friends again and it could really knock a young lads confidence both socially and football-wise too.

 

pretty sure they make a 3 or 4 year commitment on the SFA schooling part (they certainly were offering that at the Aberdeen based school a couple of years ago) but your place at the pro youth team you are associated with is not gauranteed.

[pete 2,499]

I remember my nephew who was a reasonable player became of age that he had to move to senior football. He had to go out and try to find a team to play for himself. He played a few games for a senior team but because he was pulled away from all the players he had played with through the youth system he was suddenly in a team of strangers. He never settled and was lost to football for ever. That may also be partly to blame on his own state of mind but it is crazy for me that boy's clubs are dissected from senior clubs. I have no view on the Scottish system so I may be wrong but having come through and having coached in the Dutch system it is a difference of night and day of the system I remember in Scotland after school football collapsed.

Personally as 26th said I played for my school on a Saturday morning and for the BB team on a Saturday afternoon and then for in a Sunday league on a Sunday morning. I remember having to phone round all the boys clubs when I left school to try and find a team and eventually gave up after getting a sorry we are full. I ended up a 15 year old playing in senior football with the police cadets and a few games with Dunlop amateurs in inchinnan and also a few games with Clyde united(I think it was united). As a 15 year old I was getting clogged by all the old experienced amateur players and soon was dropped to the bench and lost interest. I didn't play again until I moved to Holland. As I say football is a community game in Holland and there are about 6 clubs in Hengelo where i lived and many in the surrounding smaller towns that I can easily cycle too. You are always welcome to join and are put in at a level you are comfortable with. In the first club I joined I was put in a lower team but was promoted up within about 3 games as they realised I was far better than the players around me

Edited June 19, 2015 by pete