A VICTIM of sex abuse in Scottish football doubts that the authorities will ever to grips with the stain on the game.
The man, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, was a rising teenage star when his life fell apart as a result of alleged indecency by a youth team coach.
He now lives in the south of England, and recalls with bitterness the abuse he suffered between the ages of 15 and 17 and the lack of support both in and out of football – in a scandal he says was covered up.
"I'm 58 years old... and I am still scared," said the ex-player who quit football after what happened to him having never told his parents about what happened. They are both now dead.
"It's been going on for years and will continue to do so unless something is done about it."
But he said it would be difficult for the authorities to get to grips with the scale of the problems.
"Well, it's tough, it takes courage to come forward. And people don't want to know about this, they just want it to go away," he said.
He said that he reported three cases of indecency but that the allegations could not stick while other victims or witnesses lost their nerve.
"I wonder how many great players have been lost to football, because of sexual abuse."
The assaults have blighted his life since. "People have said that I should let the whole thing go and get on with my life. But I am very very bitter about it. It was a very frightening experience. Instead of being nurtured, as all young players should be, I was abused.
"It ended my football career. I was sickened by the whole thing. All my aspirations to play went. I just walked after that. I wanted nothing to do with football after that.
"All my aspirations to play went. I just walked after that. I wanted nothing to do with football after that.
He said he wrote a diary about his experiences because he was angry and found it therapeutic.
His allegations go back to the mid-70s when, he said he was "so naive and young" and had he been stronger he could have spoken to the manager of the football club.
In one situation he was in a hotel room in the Highlands of Scotland, and the man started touching him. The coach made a retreat when the boy said that he needed to be with his parents.
"It was always one-to-one. He'd want you to come into his bedroom to talk about your future. What are you gonna do when you are 17, you go into the room and you talk. Then the next thing happens. He starts by touching you and then see how far it would go."
He said other boys were always quick to get to the back seat of the car when being driven by the coach.
"I remember after training, he'd take three or four of us to a restaurant and there was always a scramble to get on the back seat. I soon realised, I was naive, that you go on the back seat and you don't sit on the front seat. He would grab your leg or whatever."
Two nights before one match in Fife, he discovered that, unusually, he had been given a room to himself.
"The other boys asked how I managed that? Well, I soon found out. After supper one night he asked me to leave my room open tonight. So I went to the room and locked it. And put a chair to the inside of the room also. And then at about 1.30am there was a knock on the door and he was trying to get in the room and I wouldn't answer it.
"Next day he hardly spoke to me. We played the game and won. A short time after that he took the whole squad to America and I wasn't invited, even though I was the number one player in my position for three seasons."
He has suffered from depression all his adult life. "I cannot say that what happened has caused it, but it can't have helped, can it.
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