By Kyle Sharkie

Young Scottish footballers are being pushed too hard too quickly according to a top youth football expert. Kyle Sharkie investigates teen drop outs in grassroots football.

We all remember the moment we fell in love with the beautiful game. Being inspired by our favourite players to replicate their skills on the pitch for a team of your own. This love for our most sensational sport only grew from a young age. The experience of grassroots football is great one for a young mind. They get to build early relationships as a team and understand the highest of highs when winning and the lowest of lows when losing. However maturing within the system opens your eyes to it’s flaws.  

According to last month’s review of youth development by the SFA youth football coaches judge players potentials too early being biased to a prediction based on physicality and late maturation. The small number of talents coaches deemed acceptable led to them wanting to carry smaller groups of players. This is the exact opposite of top European academy models. How are we supposed to produce quality players if we are moving backwards? We seem to have this obsession of attempting to copy foreign methods but implementing our own horrendous style of it. As the special one Jose Mourinho said, “The problem is when people want to make a copy and paste without having the conditions for it.”  

What seemed like harmless fun to a young mind can turn sour when the teen years hit. The realisation sets in that a once, so perfect pass time is not exactly as it seems. Plagued by poor coaching and favouritism game time can be dropped for players just learning their trade. This can affect footballs place on their list of priorities as the weekend starts to feel like a waste of time, training and effort. The older you become the need for money and employment grows leaving little time on a cramped schedule.  

I interviewed nineteen-year-old Stuart Gibb a former left back for who had some strong opinions about his time in the grassroots system: 

Poor Standard

“I didn’t enjoy much about it, the coaches were of really poor standard, there was a lot of favouritism and funnily enough nepotism even at that level. I stopped playing when I got a job, so I didn’t have the time anymore. When you get older, I don’t think there’s a point in playing if you know you’re not going to make it, I’d rather make money.” 

I also interviewed nineteen-year-old Jamie Knapp who played as a left winger for clubs such as Stewarton and Troon who had a much different outlook on things: 

“I hated waking up for an early morning game I’m just not a morning person. I miss the pre-game buzz before a match. It was mainly the people I played with that made the experience especially at Stewarton. Hearing my dad shouting from the sidelines could be scary but now looking back on it, it’s hilarious. I stopped playing because I wasn’t getting much game time and fell out of love with the game. Even after getting a job, I tried to get back into it but just didn’t have the time anymore.” 

Lastly, I had a chat with Scott Robertson the chairman of the Scottish Youth Football Association who enlightened me to some of the issues that are plaguing the grassroots game all the way to professional youth football: 

“A lot of coaches not them all are motivated either by their own ego or a desire to win and I have always taken the view that probably up to the age of fifteen, if you can instil a love of the game and make it fun and make that the players enjoy it, and that love the game if its embedded from a young age will carry through, push them on, drive them on  when it comes to the business end of the game when they’re asked to do one or two more runs up a hill or push themselves to do their bleep test because they’ve got that in-built passion and motivation.”  

Detrimental

Scott then went on to comment on how detrimental under twenties football has been to grassroots: 

“It only takes three or four players to leave one team and the team folds. The under twenties has damaged the SYFA teams, the better players want to go early into under twenties it does have this consequential effect of maybe causing a team to fold.” 

Scott also states his opinion on rushed development of players: 

“Nobody has any patience these days. A lot of has to do with some of the coaches and the parents go along with it they just think if its developing them its developing them cause they’ll develop faster and get better sooner, and you just think, no you won’t. The idea of keeping small sided games is so that they’re involved in gameplay all the time. How does it develop you if you’re touching the ball less?” 

Scott Finally gives his view on the effects seen further than grassroots: 

“This country is not producing football players anymore, the Scotland team half of them haven’t kicked a ball as a youth player in Scotland, I’ve criticised it for years I did a public petition called real grassroots which was the longest running petition in Scottish parliaments history and trying to get the SFA to change is incredibly difficult.” 

There is contrast in beliefs that is shown clearly in these interviews. They show that not only are there kinks in the armour of the grassroots game but there are undoubtably upsides. Scott gives us a deeper look than ever into the internal problems of the game, this late maturation can be caused by players being pushed to develop too quickly making them less physical than the players at the age levels they are playing at.