You're the Regan

[forameus]

I know this is probably going to turn into an absolute car crash, but here goes...

 

So, we're in an alternate universe.  After he realised that not working over the summer was pure brilliant, Gordon Strachan resigned and stayed in France.  He also expressed his undying love for Stewart Regan, who also resigned to go and live with Gordon in wedded bliss.

 

So it's July, and now you're in charge of the SFA.  You're given full remit to completely change the national game.  What do you do?

 

For purposes of keeping it simple, you're allowed limited rule changes and the like to club football, but only for ultimately supporting the national team.  Or you could believe that there isn't really much to change.  Or maybe you'd have a root and branch plan 10 years long to completely transform things.  Genuinely interested in what some might do.

[Raidernation]

I'd declare independence from Scotland and announce that, from now on, we are all Iceland.

[sjc]

March -November Season

3 Divisions of 14 teams with 7-7 Splits

2 Up 2 Down Automatically

12th v 3rd Play Off

Continue with Pyramid + extended to incorporate Juniors

 

Clubs restricted to:

18 players 21yo+

16 players 18-21yo

16 players 16-18yo

 

1st Team

Reserve League

U21's League

u18's League

[invergowrie arab]

Ban playstations, hand out tanner bas in schools, goal posts kept up in summer, pyramid structure, 16 team premier league 

 

 

As a semi serious answer I think we need to make it less scary for our young players to go off and play in portugal, spain, italy and germany. Support to go and spend a year playing youth football on the continent. maybe this happens - f**k knows.

 

I also have a theory based on f**k all that you shouldnt even be coaching kids in technique until 13 or 14. Until then they should just be allowed to play their natural game and not being told at under 9 level they are a left back. No competitive leagues until secondary school - just total football 7 aside, everyone playing everywhere.

 

Its similar to what we do in rugby although we are shite at rugby too so maybe not.

[pub car king]

Sack everyone that works for the sfa and start again with dragons den type interviews.

[Dunning1874]

Resign.

[thisal]

Ban playstations, hand out tanner bas in schools, goal posts kept up in summer, pyramid structure, 16 team premier league 

 

 

As a semi serious answer I think we need to make it less scary for our young players to go off and play in portugal, spain, italy and germany. Support to go and spend a year playing youth football on the continent. maybe this happens - f**k knows.

 

I also have a theory based on f**k all that you shouldnt even be coaching kids in technique until 13 or 14. Until then they should just be allowed to play their natural game and not being told at under 9 level they are a left back. No competitive leagues until secondary school - just total football 7 aside, everyone playing everywhere.

 

Its similar to what we do in rugby although we are shite at rugby too so maybe not.

I know what you mean by technique, but to me that means the basic skills and that is what we should be coaching under 13's more than anything. Ultimately its our clubs who have to produce the players. The SFA should put money aside to enable our young players to play and train more with successful continental academies. Set up something like the Northern Irish Milk cup for the clubs or an u18 equivalent to  the Toulon Tourney for the national team. If you raise the standard our of opposition you'll soon let them know that just because they've signed for a youth academy they still have a lot to learn.

[TheScarf]

Up until about 5 years ago, there was a horrific 'win at all costs' mentality when it came to youth football in this country.  You hear it so often that it was always the strongest or the quickest players that got kept on at the age of 14 or 15 and I experienced this first hand. When I was that age, there was guys getting kept on purely for their size and strength.

 

When I became a youth coach in 2007 I coached a team that played in the 'Moray Development League'.  In this, the score was never kept, results never published, because they wanted to get away from the above mindset, and actually coach the lads how to play football.  There's a huge difference. Only at, I think, under 18 level was there actually a league table with results published online or in the local rag.  That's the age, after they've been coached how to play the game for 5 years, does the competitive stuff come in.

 

I'm havering here and that was probably a bit tl;dr, but in order for young lads to become good players, you need to let them play football, the winning comes from that.

[Officer Barbrady]

Obviously this is done with tongue firmly in cheek, but still.....the implication seems to be that Regan has overseen the most unfortunate, out-of-control series of unmitigating accidents we've ever known, and there needs to be some monstrous overhaul to fix things. He hasn't, he's caused 60-70% of them himself, with Donny getting the derry for the rest. Get shot of those two, and there would be a substantial improvement in morale immediately. First step, right there.

Our former administrators didn't half get pelters, albeit probably mostly just in jest. Brutally and sometimes very funny, but Taylor, Farry, McGinn, Longmuir, Donald, Walker, Mitchell, Gold....not one of them allowed anything they oversaw to get into such a fucking mess, then spend the next four years threatening and lying to the country about it. Their feet wouldn't have touched. The job these guys did was on the level of Saddam Hussein or General Tito, managing to keep the madarse factions out of the corridors, instead of pandering to them.

Whoever you replace those dickwits with (i'd suggest Hearn) they have to get a fearless, outspoken, proven turner-arounder in to manage Scotland, and he has to capture the country's imagination with improved international form. That would create a bigger boost than simply one of the cheeks doing well in Europe, and generate belief that it's not as bad as it looks.

I don't believe that it is as bad as it looks....it just looks that way, like a comfort blanket which no one wants to let go of, in the vein of the Zeitgeist of the current Scotland we live in. A point in Dortmund, a professional display in Tbilisi, and holding on to a win v Poland would have changed all that, immeasurably, even just for three short weeks.

However, when we lost to Morocco, England, or Belgium i didn't hold anyone but Broon or the players responsible. Likewise Vogts. But the relationships between high heed yins and the manager since Eck left, have been stomach-churningly cosy. Sort that, sort some problems right away.

[ExiledSaint]

Obviously this is done with tongue firmly in cheek, but still.....the implication seems to be that Regan has overseen the most unfortunate, out-of-control series of unmitigating accidents we've ever known, and there needs to be some monstrous overhaul to fix things. He hasn't, he's caused 60-70% of them himself, with Donny getting the derry for the rest. Get shot of those two, and there would be a substantial improvement in morale immediately. First step, right there.

Our former administrators didn't half get pelters, albeit probably mostly just in jest. Brutally and sometimes very funny, but Taylor, Farry, McGinn, Longmuir, Donald, Walker, Mitchell, Gold....not one of them allowed anything they oversaw to get into such a fucking mess, then spend the next four years threatening and lying to the country about it. Their feet wouldn't have touched. The job these guys did was on the level of Saddam Hussein or General Tito, managing to keep the madarse factions out of the corridors, instead of pandering to them.

Whoever you replace those dickwits with (i'd suggest Hearn) they have to get a fearless, outspoken, proven turner-arounder in to manage Scotland, and he has to capture the country's imagination with improved international form. That would create a bigger boost than simply one of the cheeks doing well in Europe, and generate belief that it's not as bad as it looks.

I don't believe that it is as bad as it looks....it just looks that way, like a comfort blanket which no one wants to let go of, in the vein of the Zeitgeist of the current Scotland we live in. A point in Dortmund, a professional display in Tbilisi, and holding on to a win v Poland would have changed all that, immeasurably, even just for three short weeks.

However, when we lost to Morocco, England, or Belgium i didn't hold anyone but Broon or the players responsible. Likewise Vogts. But the relationships between high heed yins and the manager since Eck left, have been stomach-churningly cosy. Sort that, sort some problems right away.

Spot on!

 

I suppose it's fashionable due to their success in the Euros, but I'd copy Iceland's model; lots of indoor facilities and decent coaching. I'd also have the season run from March to November, 3 leagues of 14, 26 league games a season, League Cup in it's new format, Scottish Cup as is. 38 league games a season, on top of European games for some, and other cup games, is far too much.

[kenny131]

2 leagues of 20

4 down 4 up

1st division 3 straight up with next 4 in play offs to go up.

Prem division champs league. 2nd place europa

The next 4 teams play offs for next Europe place.

This would result in more to play for at top of prem and 4 down would be tight at the bottom.

No more playing 4 times a season and this nonsense split.

The cut throat nonsense of 12 teams would givery teams a better opportunity to field homegrown talent in my opinion

[AMMjag]

I see the BBC are going to be making another inquest into the state of Scottish football. Can't wait to see what Steven Pressley type loser they pull out of the bin to call for a 20 team league and a ban on playstations.

[Lex]

Scrap the B and Q Cup or whatever it's called.

Offer Michael O'Neill the managers job, if he says no offer Lagerback, if he says no weep softly.

Change nothing else.

[The Ginger Prince]

Make football more accessible for youngsters, more facilities that are well maintained & looked after.

There are so many pitches that can be put to use during the summer holidays that are just left. Saughton & both power league facilities (portobello & sighthill) are ideal for kids in the summer to go for a kick about but they get chased off because they've not paid any money to get on.

Of course those companies need to make money but the pitches are lying empty anyway.

It was quite unique when I played for Hutchie Vale (12/13 years ago) that we were always encouraged to pass the ball no more than 10 feet at a time and that it was never to come off the ground unless you were in the vicinity of the 18 yard box. I think that there are many players who've been lost to the game that have just had technique battered out of them due to a 'win at all costs' attitude from coaches. Sorry but winning a league at u14s means the square root of f**k all.

[kenny131]

On 07/07/2016 at 11:08 PM, Lex said:

Scrap the B and Q Cup or whatever it's called.

Offer Michael O'Neill the managers job, if he says no offer Lagerback, if he says no weep softly.

Change nothing else.
 

Change nothing else .....Are you Reagan in disguise

[Officer Barbrady]

Not a lot needs changed in terms of numbers of teams in leagues, or entries to cup competitions....none of those change the fact that simply we aren't good at football. This, however, is something that should be a matter of urgency and isn't treated as so. 

 

More clubs need to downsize significantly. Ten years ago, i'd say we had room for 24 fully professional clubs in two leagues. Now, i'd say we'd struggle to fill one. 

[Salvo Montalbano]

30 minutes ago, Officer Barbrady said:

More clubs need to downsize significantly. Ten years ago, i'd say we had room for 24 fully professional clubs in two leagues. Now, i'd say we'd struggle to fill one. 

How is (for arguments sake) Arbroath not being in a professional league going to help anything at all, in the slightest, on any level whatsoever? 

[Officer Barbrady]

Well, we already have our answer to that, don't we? I'm not picking on the wee clubs here, far from it. Players will go where the best offer, usually money, is coming from.

 

Where i'm looking at this, is there is a diminishing pool of players of a good standard. This means there are less players to go round all our clubs. They then spend an amount of money, engeared towards getting the best possible players for their pound....this is the club's rights, and entirely the players' also to accept or reject such offers. Someone has to fill the gap somewhere that, say, Raith Rovers are after a player, who is a plumber, but Arbroath can offer more than Raith Rovers can, as a full-timer.

 

Arbroath get the better player, pissing about in L2, whilst Raith scramble about with a sub-standard replacement, who quite rightly wants the wage the plumber was offered to go full-time. Say this happens 20 times a season. Twenty players (two teams worth) who bring the higher standard down drastically, while money pisses out the door and isn't returned through the turnstiles, because the football's shite.  

 

There's wrongs on every side of this, of course. Teams like Arbroath (your example) are happy to do exactly the thing i said above, while floating like a wee maroon jobbie between the bottom tiers, without ever a thought to perhaps getting to the level they want to pilfer players from. The players, in dropping to a terrible standard, aren't pushing themselves. The clubs who sign the lesser skilled players, would be better instead focusing on more youth development, and not chasing unmotivated players or ending up with inferiors. 

 

These are just some of the many, many, many backward things in Scottish football. There's fucking hunners. 

 

 

[1320Lichtie]

What a lot of utter shite

Players pissing about looking for contracts at Raith Rovers or Arbroath are never going to be up to international standard m8

[1320Lichtie]

If anything I say we help the system. Players always need to find their level. If a player comes on loan to us from a Premiership club and excels it gives them the opportunity to maybe get a chance in their own clubs first team. We've had Kenny McLean, Lee Erwin, Craig Forsyth and Callum Booth do this in recent years. We've also had plenty of players come to us and be shite, before suffering the opposite fate at their clubs and being punted.

Sure this'll be the case for every single club.

Should we only have 24 teams in Scotland then and just not let anybody else play football?

Might be the stupidest post I've ever seen.

Players find their level. No international calibre player will be sitting weighing up a half arsed FT deal from Raith and a PT deal/plumbing job with us.