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Lulu: What's Wrong With Our Football?
Like Jamaica, Scotland is a relatively small country where the locals love nothing better than a game of football to get the adrenalin pumping. However international football has become something of a sore point for supporters as both countries have slipped rapidly down the World FIFA rankings.
So where has it gone wrong? Who is to blame? What is the solution?
'The children are our future!' I hear you cry. And true enough. But how do we develop the potential that our youngsters show?
Surely, given the correct coaching and an environment to flourish, our players can be as good as in any other country.
In the not so distant past, Scotland produced some truly great players - Kenny Dalglish, Dennis Law, Archie Gemmell, Gordon Strachan…players who were known not only in their homeland but all over the globe.
Players of this ilk are no longer to be found in our game, at least, not quite yet. . .
New Scotland manager Bertie Vogts has played 7 games, won one, lost 5 and drawn one. After only 7 months in the job, there are calls for his head.
This weekend's admirable victory in Iceland, will find him some reprieve, as Scotland again looked like the team the natives expect them to be, making up for what they lack in skill, with passion and commitment for their jerseys. But one swallow does not make a summer.
The fact remains that whilst Scotland has some good players, there are currently none near legend status. Vogts says the government is to blame, and he may have a point. He and others, claim the facilities are not good enough, and the government needs to provide better playing fields and places to train.
Sport timetables have been cut back in school, and extra curricular games are practically non-existent. Before the teachers strike in the 1980's there were 200,000 registered players. After the strikes the numbers fell drastically to 2000, and have risen little since. Gone are the days when little boys gave their all to make the school team, if their school still has one!
The Scottish Football Association also receive much criticism, similar to what I hear levelled now at the JFF.
During the 1970's and 1980's the SFA failed to put a proper youth structure in place, and now the country is suffering the effects. Content with the success we enjoyed at that time, there was no thought given to maintaining that standard in the future. Children's coaches claim that new Dalglishes are out there but the system is not picking them up and boys are not receiving proper guidance (does this sound familiar?)
Boys Clubs, school teams, the SFA, the SPL and the Scottish Football League all work under different rules and requirements, yet fight over the signatures of the same talented youngsters. Lads of only ten years old are being asked to train for 2 or 3 nights whilst playing several competitive matches every week and some are simply being burned out before they even have a chance.
Clubs like Hearts want to follow examples of their European counterparts and have no competitive matches at all until boys reach a certain age group. They prefer to work on improving individual skills and ball control, introducing healthy diets as a lifestyle and ensuring the boys are enjoying what they are doing. They do not believe that young kids should be asked to run around on full adult pitches but should play on pitches relative to their size with smaller footballs.
Indeed several years ago some SPL teams, with more vision than the governing body, gave up waiting on instructions from the SFA and introduced their own youth systems. Pressure is still being put on the SFA to take all these fragmented organisations under their umbrella and control the system properly. In reply, the SFA have commissioned an enquiry into youth development and structure.
But is the downfall of the game merely just a reflection of our lifestyle nowadays? It can be argued that whilst our facilities could be improved, there are many countries worse off than Scotland who rank above us.
Football remains the country's top sport but in a different way. Too many kids, and their seniors, have become armchair spectators. They no longer go along to support their local side and most will never see the inside of a stadium, except on television. And we all know that the real passion for the game comes from being there and feeling the atmosphere, the rivalry and the comradeship.
When I was young (cue violins), both boys and girls played football in the playground and ran home to play with a ball in the street until your mother dragged you inside with a clip round the lug, (smack round the ear to you lot!). Everyone had permanent grass stains on their jeans. It was part of life.
Nowadays the kids go home and sit at their playstations or computers. 8% of 15 year olds are clinically obese, and children are ferried everywhere by car.
Kids no longer idolise men like Dalglish or even Ally McCoist. They idolise Henrik Larsson, Ronaldinho, Ronaldo, Thierry Henry and Freddy Ljungberg. There are no Scottish heroes who they want to grow up to become. I'd be interested to know who Jamaican children idolise as I suspect their heroes will be much the same as ours.
There are currently 102 foreign players in the 12 SPL clubs, and suggestions to limit the numbers of non Scots have much merit, although the Old Firm would contest such a ruling. In last week's Old Firm derby only 4 Scots took to the field between them.
Clubs like Rangers and Celtic are under huge pressure from their fans to win every single game. They want instant success and the clubs go out and buy it abroad rather than develop their own. Tore Andre Flo cost Rangers £12million and was a laughing stock. Imagine how much more Rangers, and in turn, Scotland, could have had long term if they had invested £12million in developing Scottish talent.
To be fair, Rangers are the only club which currently have a youth academy, although building work on Hearts academy begins this week and Kilmarnock have similar hopes for the future. Celtic, meanwhile, have shelved their academy plans!
It's not all doom and gloom though. The wheels are in motion to improve matters, and already teenagers who were first to go through the new youth initiatives are starting to show in the younger age group sides of the top flight teams.
Hearts manager Craig Levein says the Tynecastle under 15's and under 16's team contain some of the best players he has ever seen! Of course it will be another few years before the first team and Scotland can start to get the benefit of these boys. Meanwhile a generation of star players seems to be missing.
Until Vogts brought over fellow German, Rainer Bonhof, the Scotland under21 side had not played together in over a year. Hardly a good grounding for those who will step into the shoes of the national squad.
Vogt's predecessor Craig Brown, was infamous for his reluctance to introduce young players, preferring instead to stick with tried and tested professionals, his 'old guard'.
Whilst that tactic gave him an element of success, the consequences are that we now have players in their mid/late 20's who should be seasoned internationalists but are coming to represent their country for the first time.
Whilst the new under 21 national side are undefeated (having won 2-0 against Iceland on Friday) Vogts says it will be another 2-3 years before Scotland become a force with the current crop of young players. Patience will indeed be a virtue, but we need not have waited had the correct organisation been put into place a long time ago.
Building a house from the foundations up and not the roof down, is a relatively new idea for Scottish football. Like Jamaica, the memories of what the good times were like are still fresh enough to hurt our current predicament. We know we are capable of so much more.
For the first time in a long time, we saw light at the end of the tunnel in Iceland. It's too early to say if Scotland have finally clicked and turned the corner. Another international against Canada on Tuesday will show if we can maintain our momentum.
I hope the humour and the loyalty of the Tartan Army foot soldiers, will provide enough encouragement to carry us through this spell of rebuilding, and that our future generations can look back and say what we did now made a difference.
Let's hope both our countries can find the answers to return to the World stage.
Email comments to: Lulu@reggaeboyzsc.com
http://www.reggaeboyzsc.com/views.as...=follow&id=106
Like Jamaica, Scotland is a relatively small country where the locals love nothing better than a game of football to get the adrenalin pumping. However international football has become something of a sore point for supporters as both countries have slipped rapidly down the World FIFA rankings.
So where has it gone wrong? Who is to blame? What is the solution?
'The children are our future!' I hear you cry. And true enough. But how do we develop the potential that our youngsters show?
Surely, given the correct coaching and an environment to flourish, our players can be as good as in any other country.
In the not so distant past, Scotland produced some truly great players - Kenny Dalglish, Dennis Law, Archie Gemmell, Gordon Strachan…players who were known not only in their homeland but all over the globe.
Players of this ilk are no longer to be found in our game, at least, not quite yet. . .
New Scotland manager Bertie Vogts has played 7 games, won one, lost 5 and drawn one. After only 7 months in the job, there are calls for his head.
This weekend's admirable victory in Iceland, will find him some reprieve, as Scotland again looked like the team the natives expect them to be, making up for what they lack in skill, with passion and commitment for their jerseys. But one swallow does not make a summer.
The fact remains that whilst Scotland has some good players, there are currently none near legend status. Vogts says the government is to blame, and he may have a point. He and others, claim the facilities are not good enough, and the government needs to provide better playing fields and places to train.
Sport timetables have been cut back in school, and extra curricular games are practically non-existent. Before the teachers strike in the 1980's there were 200,000 registered players. After the strikes the numbers fell drastically to 2000, and have risen little since. Gone are the days when little boys gave their all to make the school team, if their school still has one!
The Scottish Football Association also receive much criticism, similar to what I hear levelled now at the JFF.
During the 1970's and 1980's the SFA failed to put a proper youth structure in place, and now the country is suffering the effects. Content with the success we enjoyed at that time, there was no thought given to maintaining that standard in the future. Children's coaches claim that new Dalglishes are out there but the system is not picking them up and boys are not receiving proper guidance (does this sound familiar?)
Boys Clubs, school teams, the SFA, the SPL and the Scottish Football League all work under different rules and requirements, yet fight over the signatures of the same talented youngsters. Lads of only ten years old are being asked to train for 2 or 3 nights whilst playing several competitive matches every week and some are simply being burned out before they even have a chance.
Clubs like Hearts want to follow examples of their European counterparts and have no competitive matches at all until boys reach a certain age group. They prefer to work on improving individual skills and ball control, introducing healthy diets as a lifestyle and ensuring the boys are enjoying what they are doing. They do not believe that young kids should be asked to run around on full adult pitches but should play on pitches relative to their size with smaller footballs.
Indeed several years ago some SPL teams, with more vision than the governing body, gave up waiting on instructions from the SFA and introduced their own youth systems. Pressure is still being put on the SFA to take all these fragmented organisations under their umbrella and control the system properly. In reply, the SFA have commissioned an enquiry into youth development and structure.
But is the downfall of the game merely just a reflection of our lifestyle nowadays? It can be argued that whilst our facilities could be improved, there are many countries worse off than Scotland who rank above us.
Football remains the country's top sport but in a different way. Too many kids, and their seniors, have become armchair spectators. They no longer go along to support their local side and most will never see the inside of a stadium, except on television. And we all know that the real passion for the game comes from being there and feeling the atmosphere, the rivalry and the comradeship.
When I was young (cue violins), both boys and girls played football in the playground and ran home to play with a ball in the street until your mother dragged you inside with a clip round the lug, (smack round the ear to you lot!). Everyone had permanent grass stains on their jeans. It was part of life.
Nowadays the kids go home and sit at their playstations or computers. 8% of 15 year olds are clinically obese, and children are ferried everywhere by car.
Kids no longer idolise men like Dalglish or even Ally McCoist. They idolise Henrik Larsson, Ronaldinho, Ronaldo, Thierry Henry and Freddy Ljungberg. There are no Scottish heroes who they want to grow up to become. I'd be interested to know who Jamaican children idolise as I suspect their heroes will be much the same as ours.
There are currently 102 foreign players in the 12 SPL clubs, and suggestions to limit the numbers of non Scots have much merit, although the Old Firm would contest such a ruling. In last week's Old Firm derby only 4 Scots took to the field between them.
Clubs like Rangers and Celtic are under huge pressure from their fans to win every single game. They want instant success and the clubs go out and buy it abroad rather than develop their own. Tore Andre Flo cost Rangers £12million and was a laughing stock. Imagine how much more Rangers, and in turn, Scotland, could have had long term if they had invested £12million in developing Scottish talent.
To be fair, Rangers are the only club which currently have a youth academy, although building work on Hearts academy begins this week and Kilmarnock have similar hopes for the future. Celtic, meanwhile, have shelved their academy plans!
It's not all doom and gloom though. The wheels are in motion to improve matters, and already teenagers who were first to go through the new youth initiatives are starting to show in the younger age group sides of the top flight teams.
Hearts manager Craig Levein says the Tynecastle under 15's and under 16's team contain some of the best players he has ever seen! Of course it will be another few years before the first team and Scotland can start to get the benefit of these boys. Meanwhile a generation of star players seems to be missing.
Until Vogts brought over fellow German, Rainer Bonhof, the Scotland under21 side had not played together in over a year. Hardly a good grounding for those who will step into the shoes of the national squad.
Vogt's predecessor Craig Brown, was infamous for his reluctance to introduce young players, preferring instead to stick with tried and tested professionals, his 'old guard'.
Whilst that tactic gave him an element of success, the consequences are that we now have players in their mid/late 20's who should be seasoned internationalists but are coming to represent their country for the first time.
Whilst the new under 21 national side are undefeated (having won 2-0 against Iceland on Friday) Vogts says it will be another 2-3 years before Scotland become a force with the current crop of young players. Patience will indeed be a virtue, but we need not have waited had the correct organisation been put into place a long time ago.
Building a house from the foundations up and not the roof down, is a relatively new idea for Scottish football. Like Jamaica, the memories of what the good times were like are still fresh enough to hurt our current predicament. We know we are capable of so much more.
For the first time in a long time, we saw light at the end of the tunnel in Iceland. It's too early to say if Scotland have finally clicked and turned the corner. Another international against Canada on Tuesday will show if we can maintain our momentum.
I hope the humour and the loyalty of the Tartan Army foot soldiers, will provide enough encouragement to carry us through this spell of rebuilding, and that our future generations can look back and say what we did now made a difference.
Let's hope both our countries can find the answers to return to the World stage.
Email comments to: Lulu@reggaeboyzsc.com
http://www.reggaeboyzsc.com/views.as...=follow&id=106