BILLY BREMNER MEMORIAL JOIN OUR CAMPAIGN
Date: 30th June 2023
Andy’s Sting in the Tale
30/6/2023
“Kid’s Stuff?”
Sad news indeed.
Craig Brown was quite simply a giant of our game and also a great friend of the Scottish Football Supporters Association.
He personally helped us right from the start and facilitated our launch.
He was also always available with sage advice and good humour.
His input into the recently launched Scottish Football Alliance was enthusiastic and insightful and while he could freely see that football had evolved into a multi layered self-protection racket he had faith that the call for fan-led change would grow and succeed in time because it was the right thing to do, and because of that unstoppable.
Over a few meetings, Craig and I discussed two things that Scottish football needs in particular.
The first was a concerted regeneration of schools football for a broad range of benefits to our nation as well as the game.
The second was a proper reserve league for keeping squad players match fit and bringing on youngsters in good company.
Both are No Brainers.
We all have to seriously question the lack of action by the SFA at the time after the teachers pulled out in the early 80s, and the lack of a strategy, the thinnest of plans, and half of bugger all investment by the SFA and more recently the SPFL ever since.
Short termist and self-interest myopia writ large.
And it was the same myopia that killed off the reserve leagues.
Don’t just blame your club.
Our league structures constantly pressurise then into bad decisions about the next game rather than the bigger picture and this was one of them.
Craig unreservedly supported the “Rebuilding Scottish Football” blue paper, aka ‘McLeish Free’ * and all that it is trying to do.
We as Fans Should Commemorate Craig by Taking Kids Football Seriously.
And by that I mean all kids, not just the elite.
That is a baton I’m happy to take up and stir up.
It needs political help and with that will fly, and football will be the better for it.
Scottish Football is Everyone’s Business
This Week’s Sting
1. Is Anyone North of the Wall Even at the Races?
In one of our Zoom sessions ahead of creating the ‘McLeish Free Report’ the subject was elite kids, close to Henry’s heart, and the very articulate Pat Nevin told us about the Chelsea Academy at Cobham.
We all knew it was good but not the detail, and we learned none of the success was by accident or luck.
Cobham is an institution that delivered 6 players to last year’s Chelsea Squad with Messrs Mount, Gallagher, Chalobah, Loftus-Cheek, James and Hall combining to deliver 23% of the club’s Premier League minutes played.
Pat told us about Chelsea’s Academy success, winning 7 FA Youth Cups between 2009 and 2018, and said they were constantly looking to see how they could improve because resting on laurels simply allowed others to catch up and lost the club their advantage.
Basically, Chelsea had taken a rolling long-term view and a strategy that thinks bigger, looks further ahead and invests to deliver.
This is where their ‘Vision 2030’ now kicks in.
It is new, the brainchild of the highly regarded Chelsea Director of Football Development and Operations, Neil Bath, and Jimmy Fraser, Head of Youth Development.
Together with their team they have set up 5 measurable targets to stay ahead of the fierce competition and keep the stream of players for both their own club but also for sell-ons to other clubs.
Kids can be big business in football land and lucrative, that is no secret.
And the seven year development period allows Chelsea’s current processes to be reviewed, future-proofed and for the academy to build and build and build.
Neil and Jim’s Nap Hand of Club Deliverables
Academy players and graduates to:
– Contribute 15% of league minutes.
– Make up 25% of the first team squad.
– Achieve above average GCSE and A level results.
– Produce more professionals than any other Academy.
– Win more domestic and international competitions than competing academies.
Words are cheap and we are long listening sufferers but Chelsea’s words are not of the bullshit variety.
And when it comes to developing elite players we’ve had our share of hot air recently with the spouted nonsense about the Conference League, but let’s stay south for a while and look more at how Chelsea see the way forward.
Jimmy Fraser said, “We have to be creative in getting young players from the UK and that is not easy. Our competitors were closing the gap and we don’t like that. To stay ahead of the rest, we have to respect the past and understand the present, but the key is predicting the future. The solution is surrounding our club with talented people but also being ahead in the use of technology.
Chelsea have just signed a 5 year deal with AiScout, an automated talent analysis and development programme that analyses talent in amateur and youth football.
The club worked closely with the developers to develop a system where aspirant Chelsea players download performance into a database and the club can identify candidates for further assessment.
“We’re looking for attributes and the technology is no different to the way we manage our scouting network. We’re looking for certain types of talents and will always remain flexible”.
An observer reporting on the development said something quite profound.
“It is noticeable that, amid sweeping change throughout Chelsea since Clearlake’s acquisition of the club just over a year ago that the two most successful football operations at the club, The Academy and the Women’s Team have been basically left alone to get on with what they are already good at”.
It is all there in the open for others to see.
Be the best, look after your kids and attract the best.
A virtuous circle.
Not exactly rocket science but it takes resource, commitment, and time.
Doesn’t happen overnight or by chance or on the back of wishes and prayers.
2. Pyramid Workings
You liked my CCCP analogy last week for Mike Mulraney’s secretive Pyramid Working Group meeting.
Dave from Fortrose emailed suggesting that Confidential Colts in the Championship Plans was better than my hastily written Colts Competing in the Championship Pronto.
But CCCP was seen as apt so we’ll keep it.
Well, you’ll be interested to know that last week’s secret Hampden meeting did happen but don’t look on the SFA site for a summary of the meeting or what it achieved because there isn’t one.
The plans for the SPFL to just open a ‘Conference League’, invite select members and just run with it are there in place for July next year and if I was a betting man, this is still what I think will happen.
But in the meantime Mike and the SFA are ‘asking some of the audience’, sort of.
They admitted last week that the SPFL/SFA Conference League plan was withdrawn from the AGM when it became a certainty that is would fail to be voted through.
Well the SFA now say that in the meantime they have done their bit and they now think, no they more than that, they have made a challenge that constituent leagues should come up with alternative workable suggestions.
But only suggestions that have been approved by their leagues, no kite flying or discussions about the art of the possible.
And any solutions need not involve B teams, but we all know they want it to so that is confusing.
How does Andy react to that, I hear you thinking?
Andy Thinks Irony is Alive and Well at Hampden
So here is a wee note to our new Presidente.
“Mike,
Only 2 clubs want to bully their Colts into the Championship.
It is a minority knee-jerk need and mandate and this narrow vision has got in the way and set back much needed discussion about addressing the real issues in developing Scottish elite talent.
It has swept up and blind-sighted the executive focus of those paid by all clubs to run our game and keep it and us on the right path.
Deeply damaging to our game.
None of it has been helpful apart from being so gauche and wrong that it has woken up substantial awareness that all is not working in the SPFL/SFA machinery and how they hide behind the current voting systems and members being in charge.
I do know Chelsea are not plotting at high FA levels to get their kids playing in the EFL apart from through loans like when our own Billy Gilmour went to Norwich.
Chelsea know, and by their actions show, there is no easy fix to developing top talent.
Hence their new ‘Vision 2030’ on top of their existing long-term, well-funded, well-resourced, and planned to the last detail, Academy Programme.
It is more of the same of a successful strategy.
Asking your lower leagues to come up with a better solution like happened at last weeks introverted SFA meeting is just sleight of hand, so when they don’t deliver you can justify the CCCP all along.
That is really sneaky, but luckily so obvious it is inadvertently transparent and can be seen as quite Machiavellian in intent.
Scottish Football really has to look further outside to frame a bigger picture that brings the biggest common good benefit for the game, not just its dominant rump demanding more.
You should be working outside the existing bubble with its failed and failing conventional wisdoms to generate and offer all your members better options and solutions.
None of them are overnight successes.
Have a look at my Nap Hand of ‘Scottish Football Needs’ below and work with us on any/all of them.
Have a look at the Scottish Football Alliance site.
Have a look anywhere s long as it is outside.
When you realise ‘Football is Everyone’s Business’ and look outwards there will be a sea change for the good not just at the 6th floor but right through the game including your own club”
Yours,
Andy
3. Loans, Frees, and Bargain Basements?
South of the border this week’s transfer headlines are mind boggling and the financial madness is just that, mad.
Declan Rice a £105M bargain from West Ham to Arsenal
Kai Havertz £65 Chelsea to Arsenal.
Mason Mount £60M from Chelsea to Man Utd
James Madison £40M Leicester to Spurs (Who still have their eyes on some genuine bargains from up here.)
In Scotland some clubs might claim £2M or 3M deals and there will be some exaggerated numbers but the reality is only one club has any money to spend and its benefits will almost certainly flow abroad and thus deliver zero multiplier effect to Scottish clubs.
Our pressure cooker system precludes developing top youngsters.
Leagues are too small and there is too much worry, starting in August.
Clubs want and need instant success because managers careers are based on the next three results not the number of kids they have developed.
The model up here is broken and those in 6th floor power are of a mind to cling on to their blazers rather than think building blocks, infrastructure, and league organisation.
Words are so cheap.
And at a time when big thinking and vision is needed there is neither.
The SPFL Stepping Stone
That is all we have become.
Looks like Jota has picked Saudi but by doing so has secured himself financially for ever.
I can’t blame him for that and good business for Celtic and Benfica too.
Who knows when our other over achieving guests will move on?
We are rudderless.
We are not good at developing talent.
And like a rabbit in the headlights we don’t know what to do or which way to turn.
Last week’s Scottish Football Alliance document, aka the ‘McLeish Free Report’ is at least a starting point., a work in progress
And Mike, Ian, Neil, et al, the solution really is Kid’s Stuff and how we build a sustainable game and business from the bottom up.
Top down doesn’t work anymore and I don’t think it ever did.
We have to stop managing a decline and address years of self harm.
Input to Sting is welcome as always, we don’t have to agree about everything or even anything .
Have a great weekend despite the forecast.
First a wee thank you to those who answered last week’s blog Heading, Is Henry McLeish daft?
I was laughing out loud a few times and the printable retorts included:
Marion’s, “Yes, if he had ridden the nonsense he’d still be First Minister”
Rab’s, “Yes, he’ll never change how Hampden thinks, so we’re all wasting our time”, and
Alex who says, “Thank you Henry, this will take more than a meeting at Holyrood, but it will inspire a deep and long term movement for change. Fans want more and that needs changes for the better”.
And this weeks’ repeating background album to drown out the usual Friday Fracas outside is Santana and ‘Caravanserai’.
12 Tracks and 52 minutes of magic.
A fine, fine album.
Andy’s Nap Hand:
– An Open and fair Pyramid.
– Fair treatment for youngsters by clubs.
– A football futures fund.
– A Fans Charter.
– Kids football prioritised, free, and central to everything throughout the game.
Posted in: Andy’s Sting in the Tale