There has always been a great need in the game to develop young players from the grassroots of the game to a point where they can make the transition into a professional club. From my own personal experience, the progression of a young player to that stage is a difficult journey and this is backed up by the small success rate in relation to the amount of players who start off on the journey. An even smaller success rate accounts for the amount players who then develop from the Scottish Leagues and either go onto to European success or even move to a better standard of play elsewhere. This wasn’t always the case though.

In the past, Scotland produced numerous excellent players who were more than a match for anyone else on the continent at club level. This was borne out by the fact that in the sixties and early seventies, Scottish clubs punched well above their weight in terms of European competition. Not only did Celtic and Rangers triumph and have numerous near misses, Dundee, Dunfermline and Hibernian also made it to European semi-finals. It is clear from this evidence that we were once able to produce top class players so why is it that we struggle now?

There is no doubt that times have changed and that the ‘street’ football that nurtured all of those from an earlier era is now long gone. Looking back to then, it appears that players developed themselves whereas now it has been replaced by a coach-driven approach from a very young age which we have imported from abroad.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m all for role-modelling approaches which have been successful for other people. It can save a lot of time in terms of progress and the beauty of it is that you should have the benefit of learning from the mistakes that the other guy has made. The worry that I have in role modelling coaching systems from other countries is that important factors like the culture, climate and style of football can be markedly different and these difference can play a huge part in the end result.

When any sort of worthwhile test is carried out then it is important that the conditions of the test are the same each time that it is run or else the results of the test can be affected by an external influence. For example, when you are keeping track of your resting heart rate every day then it is advisable to take it every day just after you have woken up so that you can accurately identify any changes. This is because your resting heart rate after waking will be different to your resting heart rate in mid-afternoon due to factors such as stress levels, food and drink intake, medication, exercise which all have a direct influence one way or the other on your heart rate.

What I’m driving at here is that although the governing bodies have role-modelled coaching systems that are successful in Spain or Holland, their culture and everyday life is so markedly different to ours that comparing both our end products together is akin to comparing apples to pears.

When Scottish, or British teams in general, have been successful in Europe, it has been by developing players and playing a brand of football which was very specific to us and which made it difficult for the opposition as they weren’t used to it.

I think what I’m trying to advocate here is that if we are going to role-model a coaching system then it has to be one that operates in an environment and culture which is very closely related to ours and therefore can use our own positive traits as a cornerstone to build upon. If that ever becomes a successful reality then I’m looking forward to the Spanish or the Dutch modelling us and thundering into 50/50’s every 5 minutes!

I think it would be well worth the time to examine exactly how we managed to successfully produce such wonderfully skilful and gifted players previously and then find a way to adapt it to the modern day. A marriage of that and role-modelling the successful parts of a successful coaching system from a similar culture, maybe Germany, could provide us with a successful blueprint for our young players.