This is a quote from Neil Warnocks column on the BBC site. I'm sick of reading things like this now! Surley there is something the fans can do to get changes made in the structure of Scottish football/Youth development! Any ideas? "I must admit, I'm not a big fan of international friendly matches and I miss the old Home International tournament. The England-Scotland games were intense and competitive and actually meant something. I remember going to a game at Wembley years ago when my ticket was in among the Scotland supporters. They knew I was English, but it wasn't long before they undid their overcoats and pulled out bottles of Guinness and whisky and shared them around. I'm afraid it deteriorated a few years down the line, when they pulled down the goalposts at Wembley, but we've lost something we will never get back. Not for the least reason that Scotland aren't producing world-class players any more, there doesn't appear to be the investment in the youth set-up north of the border. Time was when all the top English teams had a Scot at their heart, and he was invariably the most skilful and influential."
Here is a quality youth site www.accies-youth.fsnet.co.uk . We have good ficlities here, as we get to play our home games on New Douglas Park as it is now astro grass. The set-up is very good.
There are ONLY three academies in Scotland. These are Rangers, Hearts and Ross County. Livingston had one planned, but this is still in the pipeline. That is the key problem. A lack of youth facilites means that we are losing the vast majority of our potential talent. It is not acceptable.
Well surely this is the chance to wipe the slate clean and start again. Taylor has got to go. He has tried and it has not worked out. Someone needs to go directly to Jack McConnell and demand money. He is a football man so I’m sure he would want to get involved. We are going wrong somewhere. Out of all the people I played football when I was younger the only one to make it is Keith Lasley. Now no disrespect to Keith, as he is a mate, but there was so many more of our mates who were far better than him. But they never made it. That has got to be down to the youth system! I’m sure of that.
Easier said than done I'm afraid. The whole way the SFA works and thinks has to be changed. Same here. Some of the guys I played football with at school had amazing talent. Those people that say kids don't play football anymore and there's no natural talent are talking out their arse. When I was young, a group of us played football everyday we could and anywhere we could. Some of these guys were extremely talented and could at least have made proffesional, some of them were at clubs but they were just allowed to slip through the net because of apathy and poor organisation. If you're a talented 16 year old playing with a club, football isn't the be all and end all. You could give up the game and get a job or go to college, do whatever you want, so maybe the hunger isn't there for a lot of them but that's where clubs and acadamies should come in. It is a mess and we're not beyond the point of no return by any means. We're a big football country (in that we are crazy about football and just about every young boy would love to be a footballer). But, young, talented kids are not going to appear from nowhere anymore we have to encourage kids to play football, look for the ones with potential and develop them properly. This isn't revolutionary, it's what every single country in Europe is doing bar us.
Everyone can see the problems but nobody seems to do anything about it! It would be nice to at least hear some excuses about the lack of progress!
To be honest, I think there is a lot of talent in Scottish football. At the age of 10 and 11, there is an enourmas amount of talent, but by the age of 14, alot of those talented players are more interested in drink and smoking and then they get to the stage they can't be bothered. That's my opinion anyway.
According to the paper today AC Milan are opening up youth academies in Barcelona, Paris and Glasgow.