A lengthy recent spell off following rugby’s World Cup had elements of a busman’s holiday since it was interrupted by a visit to the thought-provoking SFA Convention and what we nowadays like to call ‘a catch-up’ with a former Scotland rugby head coach.
In their different ways both offered genuine hope that there is growing understanding among those operating at the sharp end of elite sport of what is required to revive Scottish competitiveness moving forward.
For all the spin used down the years to try to camouflage it, the scale of the problem is vast and best demonstrated in what we consider our major sports where, as addressed here many times over the past decade and more, our Celtic neighbours are out-stripping us on the football pitch, the rugby paddock, the cricket field and the golf course to spectacular degrees.
The old argument that this is cyclical has been debunked and it has long been obvious that the problem is systemic.
That is what made Gordon Strachan’s contribution at the SFA Convention, sitting alongside Brian McClair, his former Manchester United team-mate who has been put in charge of youth development at Hampden, all the more encouraging because he so clearly understands the underlying issues that have hampered his chances of success and those of his predecessors in the 21st century.
With youngsters who were born after Scotland last participated in a major championship in our national sport having long since reached the age at which they can legally have children of their own, the Scotland manager noted that he was addressing matters that had been way beyond his remit when he was appointed to extract the best from what Scottish-qualified talent is currently available at senior international level.
While welcoming the drive for new facilities that had also been discussed in the course of the day, he spoke passionately about the need to regenerate a culture in which would-be players took responsibility for themselves, noting that the key thing is simply to be kicking a ball as often as possible.
In saying so he cited two memorable examples and while the first was drawn from experience in England it was used to demonstrate the sort of attitudes that prevail.
He had seen the chances of one of his grand-children’s winning a local cup semi-final blighted by the non-involvement of one of the team’s better players who was fully fit but laughing and joking about being on the sidelines because he was set for much bigger things having been told by Birmingham City, to whom he was attached, not to play.
Strachan admitted to being so frustrated by his behaviour and, more particularly, that of his proud mum who was lording it over other parents, that he had to resist the temptation to go over and tell them what he knew, that this youngster had no realistic chance of making it as a professional player.
The lad was duly released by Birmingham that summer, the loss of what might have been a marvellous shared experience with schoolmates denied him and them for nothing.
He then moved onto the example of a youth professional team travelling from Paisley to somewhere in the highlands to play a match. On the basis of statistics which suggest a player will get an average of 50 touches of the ball per match he had, in that couthy way of his, calculated that the players would get a touch of the ball for every eight miles travelled.
Strachan’s essential message, however, was about the need for youngsters to play and enjoy sport and he was particularly strong on the need to get them playing more than one rather than specialising at too early an age.
My chat with Frank Hadden was meanwhile a follow-up on our discussion of last year which produced a three part series in HeraldSport on the way forward for Scottish rugby which, in turn, resulted in the SRU contacting their former employee and acknowledging the need for a complete re-think of their youth development policies.
The new system consequently introduced is outlined by Hadden in these pages today and his Youth Conference set-up looks like a potential exemplar for all sport.
The most successful Scotland coach this century – he remains the last to claim victories over England, France and Wales - is also the only one in the past 12 years to have been homegrown and so have an understanding of Scottish rugby as a whole and he is first to recognise that there remain flaws, not least of which is that this system currently focuses on working with those clubs and schools that are already most receptive to rugby rather than extending its reach.
However the whole club/school approach that he has championed and has now seen implemented is a model that has the potential to be embraced by every sport.
For too long those involved in sport at the top end have minded their own business and left it to career administrators to run youth development programmes.
Intelligent interventions such as these by Strachan and Hadden, as well as those of tennis’s Murray family, offer hope that better ways can be found of providing opportunities for Scottish youngsters to be successful.
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