Govan. Photograph by Islay McLeod
Change is in the air in Scottish football. The national team has a new manAger and reconstruction is once again on the agenda. However, cynics may find it difficult to resist the temptation to write sentences containing the words reconstruction, deckchairs and Titanic. Nevertheless, football at professional and grassroots levels still matters to a great many in Scotland. Sadly, many of us who love the game view its future with growing pessimism. The inescapable conclusion is that our game is dying from the boots up.
My old classmate Jim Addison’s memorable personal history of Aberdeen Football Club, ‘Behind the Goal’, provides a useful starting point in tracing the downward spiral of the last 50 years. The title reflects where he and I and thousands of other youngsters watched the Dons in the 1950s and 1960s. Tellingly, Addison subtitled his book ‘Sentenced to life as a Don’. I was sentenced with no prospect of remission at a very early age. My father first took me to Pittodrie for season 1954/55, the first (and only) time the Dons won the old First Division. My first visit to Hampden was to see the League Cup won in 1957.
Even during the famine years of the late 50s and 60s, and there were many, we still had hope that this might, just might, be our season. Even when our burning hopes invariably turned to ashes, we found solace in the sublime skills of the likes of Leggat, Glen and Cooke. Even the struggling Aberdeen teams of the 1960s had players who displayed skills for which the current wearers of the red and white would give their left legs. Sadly, for some, the loss of that limb would make little difference.
What has happened in the interim? Unquestionably one of the main reasons for declining skill levels is the reduction in the number of youngsters playing the game on a regular basis. In the 1960s, before school, at playtimes and lunchtimes, every neuk of school playgrounds was transformed into an imaginary Hampden, Pittodrie and Ibrox. In recent years my day job took me to a great many schools throughout Scotland. I was regularly dismayed to walk past largely deserted all-weather pitches which, 40 years ago, would have been awash with budding Baxters, Laws and Dalglishes.
Declining levels of participation and skill are not uniformly replicated elsewhere in the world. Recently, in Tunisia, I watched a kick-about amongst a group of teenagers on a piece of rough ground. The ball was scarred and peeling and there were no garish, over-priced boots on show, but there was a skill level that would have put some Scottish professionals in the shade.
In those few minutes it became blindingly obvious why Scotland is now ranked below many ’emerging’ nations. In those countries, largely in the absence of electronic gadgetry, social networking and an alcohol-centric culture, there is still mass participation in football. It continues to engage young people and fulfil valuable health-promoting and social purposes. Admittedly within different economic and social contexts, we need to consider what can be done to promote similar levels of participation and performance. As a former teacher and ‘manager’ of many school teams over 40 years, it is perhaps unsurprising that I see at least part of the answer lying in school football.
The significance of the teachers’ disputes of the 1970s and 1980s in the decline of Scottish football has never been fully appreciated. In its heyday school football was totally different from any other grade and encouraged participation. In general the teachers who ran the teams instilled a unique discipline and sense of fair play.
While not wishing to stroll any further down memory lane, I recall being placed on the waiting list of teachers who wanted to run one of the school teams. If my memory serves me right, my first role was ‘co-manager’ of under-13 (reserves). Levels of participation and skills were high. In the medium-sized secondary in which I first worked, there were simultaneously youngsters who would go on to have distinguished professional careers, to score winning goals in Scottish and European finals and to represent and manage Scotland.
It is ironic that the SFA Youth Initiative clubs now make it virtually impossible for a youngster ‘on their books’ to play for school teams. It is not as if the malign influence of this arrangement has gone unnoticed. The ‘contractual’ relationship of professional clubs with players under the age of 16 was the subject of a petition to the Scottish Parliament. The dead hand of the professional game has diminished and devalued the role of school football thereby contributing to declining participation and interest in the game in general. All the reorganisation in the world will make little difference unless we get more boys and girls playing the game on a regular basis.
The mass participation of the 60s and 70s, particularly on a Saturday morning, has gone forever. It’s unlikely that teachers can be persuaded in sufficient numbers to exchange the joys of Tesco and B&Q for a cold and wet touchline. Many youngsters have Saturday jobs that fund their social lives.
An alternative strategy is needed to increase participation at school level. If we are serious about improving the nation’s health through involvement in sport, isn’t it time that we looked again at the length of the school day? Most of Scotland’s schools close before 3.30pm. That represents a waste of the splendid facilities that have been incorporated into virtually every new school in the country. It’s ironic that participation has declined at the very time facilities have improved markedly.
Extending the school day by an hour on three days a week could provide time for activities that have been squeezed by other curricular imperatives. A few schools attempted to do so as part of the ‘Schools of Ambition’ project. Schools are the only places where young people are, so to speak, a captive audience. Building time for sport, particularly football, into an extended day, would provide the opportunity to revive participation at grassroots level in the way that provided a firm foundation for other grades of football in the 50s, 60s and early 70s.
Will it happen? I doubt it. Difficulties surrounding cost, contracts and school transport will prevail. Hand-wringing about the health and fitness of our young people will continue together with the steady decline of Scottish football.
All the reconstruction in the world will be pointless if the game is not nurtured at its roots. Professional clubs, understandably, are elitist and, by their very nature, are totally unsuited to the role of broadening participation. Schools are the only places where mass participation can be revived, albeit as part of an extended school day and probably not on a Saturday.
Politicians and football administrators need to recognise that we are now deep into stoppage time if we are to save the Scottish game. Scotland is presently 69th in FIFA’s international rankings, one place ahead of the Cape Verde Islands but a full 20 places behind the might of Gabon. Without some hard thinking outside the penalty box, mediocrity will be something that we can only aspire to.
Douglas Marr CBE is a former headteacher
