Youth development

I HAVE long had a theory that the answer to Scottish Football's perennial problem of poor youth development lies across the Atlantic.

Over there virtually all sport for people under the age of 21 or so is conducted through the education system. High School heroes become collegiate stars, with only the very best going on into the mega-rich professional leagues such as the NBA, NFL, NHL, MLS and MLB.

If a sportsman or woman hasn't bagged their professional contract by the time they leave college - they can either move abroad or get a job, at least, they've got some qualifications behind them.

Over here, once a teenaged boy has got his place in what we laughingly call our Youth Academies, he virtually gives up on formal education - from then on, only football matters.

A few of the failures give themselves a shake and make something of themselves. Far too many end up, beer-gutted, over-weight, in a dead-end job and still in their twenties, telling their mates down the pub: "I couda bin a contender". Aye right.

In Scotland we've got too many 'Senior' clubs, who offer nothing to Scottish football other than to survive as 'Senior Clubs'. The likes of Forfar, Montrose, Brechin, Albion Rovers and a few more I could name have smaller supports and do less for youth development than some of the best Junior clubs. Places such as Linlithgow, Bathgate, Irvine and Cumnock have only junior teams to follow - but are just as big as some of the afore-mentioned home towns of senior teams.

Scotland has a population of approximately 5,000,000. Greater London has twice that number. Scotland has 42 "senior" football teams. Greater London has only 13 teams in either the Premiership or the Football League. Accepting that Scottish football has a bigger following per head of population than London, that's still far too many clubs up here presuming, wrongly, to be "Senior".

We cannot get rid of them, turkeys will never vote for Christmas after all. But we should perhaps find the lesser clubs a new role. There follows the Socrates MacSporran plan to save Scottish football.

We adopt a minimum club standard for senior football (all-seated ground of a given minimum size, full-time, academy teams up to Under-19, financially safe); we say there will be a maximum of say 24 such clubs, who have until a given date, say 2015, to comply.

Below these 24 clubs, every club is a junior club - but - these junior clubs can be linked as feedoer and associate clubs to senior clubs.

The top 24 should be operating in two "conferences" of equal standing - but I will return to this later.

The junior clubs have responsibility for local football development and encouragement; the senior clubs have the pick of the best from their associate/feeder clubs, plus their own feeder/development system, which is strictly-controlled as to area of influence.

At the end of the season in which they turn 19, the players in the senior clubs' Under-19 teams can either: step-up to that club's senior squad, be farmed-out to the associate/feeder junior clubs on a two-year deal to continue their development.

We make the leagues in which these junior clubs play Under-23 leagues, clubs can only field a maximum of three players older than 23. I would welcome one national Under-23 league for the best clubs, atop a regional pyramid system.

We still produce talented kids - anyone who regularly watches SFL games in which younger Old Firm players, loaned-out to a lesser club, are performing can tell you, the talent's there - it's the development programme which is wrong.

Last night I watched Hibs play Queen of the South. Young Danny Galbraith of Hibs repeatedly caught the eye. He scored one cracker and had another brilliant "assist". Nineteen-year-old Galbraith has been known for some time to be "one for the future", his career has been blighted by injuries, but he has a chance.

He might not be able to influence too many SPL games, but, sent out to somewhere like Queen of the South or Dunfermline for a season - he could blossom.

How many others might blossom if we had a system whereby Queen's Park was Rangers' Under-23 development team, Cowdenbeath filled the same function for Hearts, Albion Rovers for Celtic, Berwick Rangers for Hibs, Cove Rangers for Aberdeen or Forfar and Arbroath for the two Dundee sides. I think it's worth a try, but appreciate it will probably never happen.