Kris Boyd - 'Football is now a Middle Class sport'

[The_Judge]

1 hour ago, Melanius Mullarkey said:

PLAY FOOTBALL DOWN COAL MINES

Where being a one trick pony is an advantage...?

[The_Judge]

11 minutes ago, kenny131 said:

Fact is the country has never gave to flying fecks too grassroots sport. I grew up in a town with 8k population and there was no kids football teams at all this was 30yrs ago and no computer games we were constantly playing football but no adults were interest in starting teams.

Fast forward to today still feck all in my home town. In comparison I live in a town half the size in Wales now and it has 3 adult amateur teams 1 semi pro team. All age groups kids football. This is mirrored by the local  rugby club. The locals give a shite about where they live and give back to community.........somewhere along the line going back decades people in Scotland don't give a flying f**k about where they live and are not arsed about helping out.

Blame Thatcher!

[AyrTroopMajor]

31 minutes ago, Scary Bear said:

You mentioned that you are 27. The likes of O’Donnell and Cooper are the same age as you. We’ll need to establish if they are working class and if they ran along a beach. If they did, we’re back to square one!

I was also a shitebag when I played tbf so just disregard my sand dune pish-patter.

[qos_75]

It is the same conversation we have after every failed campaign but nothing really changes. 

We are still producing players, so access to pitches doesn’t seem to be that big a problem. However, the quality of player being churned out is.  

For me it points to an issue with coaching somewhere along the journey from youth club to senior club. How good/consistent are our coaches?  

The SFA likes to trumpet the quality of their coaching courses but the proof is in the pudding.

We haven’t had players (Robertson aside) approaching decent on the world stage since the likes of John Collin etc in the 1990s.

It is odd that for over100 years we were tripping over quality players. Now though we seem incapable of developing any. This despite almost every man and their dog holding a coaching badge of some sort from the SFA. 

 

 

 

 

[The_Kincardine]

1 hour ago, AyrTroopMajor said:

Coaching has evolved from the days where the players were run into the ground, up the sand dunes etc. This has generally been seen as 'progress' but maybe the opposite is true. 

When I played Boys Club football (up to U-19's) we were taken to Ayr beach for pre-season training which essentially involved running until we were ill. It's something that you never see now but maybe there is some correlation between the disappearance of that method of coaching and the absolute shitebags that we seem to produce nowadays.

ETA: Apologies for what seems like a 'Yer Da' type post, just thinking aloud

To continue the 'yer da' theme...the decline of the BB hasn't helped.  There was always BB football in Motherwell on a Saturday afternoon.

[Guest]

13 minutes ago, qos_75 said:

It is the same conversation we have after every failed campaign but nothing really changes. 

We are still producing players, so access to pitches doesn’t seem to be that big a problem. However, the quality of player being churned out is.  

For me it points to an issue with coaching somewhere along the journey from youth club to senior club. How good/consistent are our coaches?  

The SFA likes to trumpet the quality of their coaching courses but the proof is in the pudding.

We haven’t had players (Robertson aside) approaching decent on the world stage since the likes of John Collin etc in the 1990s.

It is odd that for over100 years we were tripping over quality players. Now though we seem incapable of developing any. This despite almost every man and their dog holding a coaching badge of some sort from the SFA. 

 

 

 

 

I believe that style of play could have much to do with our failures, looking at it currently, do we think that Sweden, Denmark, Rep of Ireland, Northern Ireland and Iceland all have much better players than us ?

With the exception of maybe Eriksen at Denmark, I'd say No.

On the other side of the coin, it could be argued that the likes of Bulgaria, Turkey and Greece are all performing much worse than us in relation to their expectations as Footballing nations and size of population.

Maybe it's just natural and we're looking for answers which aren't there, as I mentioned in an earlier post, had we had this conversation 10 years ago then Belgium would have been used as one of the examples of the underachievers (ranked 66 in the world), yet look at them now................

[Lee Van Tee]

17 minutes ago, qos_75 said:

It is the same conversation we have after every failed campaign but nothing really changes. 

We are still producing players, so access to pitches doesn’t seem to be that big a problem. However, the quality of player being churned out is.  

For me it points to an issue with coaching somewhere along the journey from youth club to senior club. How good/consistent are our coaches?  

The SFA likes to trumpet the quality of their coaching courses but the proof is in the pudding.

We haven’t had players (Robertson aside) approaching decent on the world stage since the likes of John Collin etc in the 1990s.

It is odd that for over100 years we were tripping over quality players. Now though we seem incapable of developing any. This despite almost every man and their dog holding a coaching badge of some sort from the SFA. 

 

 

 

 

I think you definitely have  a point about coaching but  I have to wonder about the coaching of kids in Norn Ireland and Wales, I have no idea if they do things differently. If so what exactly, does anybody know?

Then there's the fact that a significant number of our squad members in recent years haven't lived in Scotland as children, most being coached in England.

[TheScarf]

22 minutes ago, qos_75 said:

This despite almost every man and their dog holding a coaching badge of some sort from the SFA. 

That's one of the main reasons Scotland are so shite at football.  Any cunt these days can get a coaching badge.  

I've been involved in youth football in the past, i coached boys who are the same age as Andy Roberston (1994 births) and at that age group - under 14 in 2007, some of the coaches were utter jokes.

Some of the shouts I heard were gems like 'Press!!!!Press!!!Press!!!' 'Get it up, get it up!.  'Skin him, skin him!.  These were youth coaches at Aberdeen on this occasion.  Fucking horrendous. I may add that the team we were up against were all massive compared to our players.

[Northboy]

29 minutes ago, qos_75 said:

For me it points to an issue with coaching somewhere along the journey from youth club to senior club. How good/consistent are our coaches?  

I hear Pat Nevin widely quoted on the radio today saying it's not the coaches. Coaches and clubs need to wake up and realise they're as much part of the problem as the SFA and society. Scotland has produced some of the greatest coaches/managers in the history of the game but I struggle to think of any inspiring Scottish coach/manager who has come into the game in the last 20-30 years. We can't entirely blame the SFA coaching system as there are opportunities to gain qualifications and experience all around Europe or even the world. There is nothing creative of innovative coming out of any of our clubs. Seems like hard work and strength are more important that skill.

[Northboy]

17 minutes ago, TheScarf said:

Some of the shouts I heard were gems like 'Press!!!!Press!!!Press!!!' 'Get it up, get it up!.  'Skin him, skin him!.  These were youth coaches at Aberdeen on this occasion.  Fucking horrendous. I may add that the team we were up against were all massive compared to our players.

I saw something very similar this past summer at an Aberdeen summer camp held at local playing fields. Three coaches were on their phones at different sides of the pitch while 20-30 young kinds swarmed and chased the ball around the park. The whole thing smacked of a commercial exercise rather than proper coaching.

[Scary Bear]

50 minutes ago, qos_75 said:

It is the same conversation we have after every failed campaign but nothing really changes. 

We are still producing players, so access to pitches doesn’t seem to be that big a problem. However, the quality of player being churned out is.  

For me it points to an issue with coaching somewhere along the journey from youth club to senior club. How good/consistent are our coaches?  

The SFA likes to trumpet the quality of their coaching courses but the proof is in the pudding.

We haven’t had players (Robertson aside) approaching decent on the world stage since the likes of John Collin etc in the 1990s.

It is odd that for over100 years we were tripping over quality players. Now though we seem incapable of developing any. This despite almost every man and their dog holding a coaching badge of some sort from the SFA. 

 

 

 

 

Maybe the problem is standardisation of coaching?

[effeffsee_the2nd]

seriously boys, who has weans or is still young enough o remember what the current set up is?  is it fun and interesting or is it something that they would start to dread like another school lesson?

I was always shite at fitbaw , I have poor motor co-ordination and reaction time ,  and as a wean and didn't have any attention span to learn so tbf pep guardiola couldn't have done much to help me

I was too shite for boys clubs but I remember going to a council run soccer school run by the then assistant manager at Stenhousemuir,  the exercises seemed to be the same every week and awfully dull so after a while it just eneded up being 6 aside games for the hour with the adult coaches in goals .  I assume that was more to give the kids something to do rather than develop talent mind you. anyway after a while most gave it up no better than they were when they started.

[pozbaird]

I grew up in the late 60s and 70s, and was a bit pish at fitba’, but OK at golf. Being a bit pish didn’t stop me and my mates being out kicking a ball around, every day, or grabbing an old golf club and bashing a Penfold Commando around. I played BB football, a bit of school football, but then really got into the golf. As I grew up, places like the Racecourse in Paisley were jammed. Tons of football pitches, all packed out with BB football, school teams, youth teams, and amateur grown-ups teams. Any St Mirren fan will tell you that the Racecourse these days is a far cry from that era. Similarly, there were lots of junior members at my golf club, and lots of junior sections at all other clubs. Most golf clubs had waiting lists for adult memberships. Not these days. I also remember PE teachers at my school being pro-active in taking football teams and all sorts, outwith normal working hours.

The simple drop in level of participation, in both football and golf, surely, must be a huge factor in us being a bit pish on the world stage.  In my day (at risk of sounding like an auld fuddy duddy), we didn’t have Playstations, iPhones, weren’t glued to social media posts, didn’t have TVs or computers in our rooms, on which to play Fortnite... and all that jazz.

However, kids in Belgium, and countries like it, also now have distractions and alternatives, like Playstations, as an alternative to kicking a ball around, like we used to. Maybe we’re just unlucky. Maybe they’re just lucky, in that they have so many good players coming through as their ‘golden generation’. 

Fcuk knows what the answer is to stop us being so shite at top level international football. There must be many factors involved. The coaching, management, structure - it could all improve, but if there’s just not enough raw talent there in the first place?

[GAD]

By far the worst thing to happen to Scottish football in the modern era was the breakup of the Soviet Union.

[pozbaird]

8 minutes ago, GAD said:

By far the worst thing to happen to Scottish football in the modern era was the breakup of the Soviet Union.

It was either that, or Bosman stopping the likes of Jim McLean chaining down talented squads on ten year contracts at a tenner a week, or Murray & Souness, and every other cnut trying to keep up by spending daft money, or agents holding the aces, or the formation of the Premier League, or selling our soul to Sky TV..... on balance though, I think the writing was on the wall for Scottish football when they stopped putting dolly burdz on the back of Tennents cans.

[ICTChris]

There's a lot going on in this discussion, as usual when Scotland get papped.

There's obviously been social changes in the last few decades that mean that the way that kids used to play football in the street for hours and hours a day doesn't hold.  These changes are pretty wide ranging and sometime completely unrelated to football - for example, the reduction in religious adherence is going to affect organisations like the Boys Brigade which has a knock on affect on the sports teams that these organisations used to run.  Social changes like most families having two working parents changing the dynamics of childrens lives - when I was a kid in the 1980s basically everyone's mum was at home, certainly when you were a little kid they were.  There are a wider variety of sports that people can play now - my nieces nephews do stuff like triathlon, gymnastics and basketball.

These changes have happened for reasons far removed from anything to do with football and you can certainly make an argument that they are positive but the reaction from pundits and fans is often to just throw arms up in the air and basically say that kids today are too fat and want to play Playstation rather than kerby.  Society and life changes, if you want football to continue to appeal then you have to change with it but Scottish football seems stuck.

In terms of social class, I think Scotland is a strange country when it talks about class.  I absolutely agree that there should be ways for kids to play without having to shell out money for astroturf pitches but I also think the idea that there are huge swathes of kids being priced out of football is far fetched.  I'm sure it does happen but is it of the extent that it's the reason why Scotland haven't qualified for a world cup for decades.  You can look at places that have higher levels of poverty that consistently produce competitive international teams.  

 

[Richey Edwards]

If Scotland had voted for independence back in 2014, it would have been able to take back control of its football.

 

[Guest Bob Mahelp]

Boyd talking rose-tinted pish. 

When football was a 'working class' sport and kids lived in a box and had feck all to play with apart from a stick, a burst baw and some TB, how many tournaments did we win ? How many feckin tournaments did we qualify for ? 

None, and not many, are the answers to these questions. The fact is, we've always been useless, half-arsed, blissfully unaware footballers right from the minute in 1954, when we turned up in Switzerland in 30 degree heat with thick long sleeved woollen jerseys because someone at the SFA believed we were playing on the top of a mountain in a snowstorm.....the consequence being we got our arses ridden by a Uruguay team that were smarter, fitter and better than us, even though they'd just stepped right out of the 19th century favelas of Montevideo (I know it's Portuguese, don't spoil my rant).

And don't get me started on Peru, 1978.

Boyd strikes me a Brexity loving fuckwit, with his 'the past is always better' nonsense. 

Edited September 10, 2019 by Bob Mahelp

[Lee Van Tee]

3 minutes ago, Bob Mahelp said:

Boyd talking rose-tinted pish. 

When football was a 'working class' sport and kids lived in a box and had feck all to play with apart from a stick, a burst baw and some TB, how many tournaments did we win ? How many feckin tournaments did we qualify for ? 

None, and not many, are the answers to these questions. 

Boyd strikes me a Brexity loving fuckwit, with his 'the past is always better' nonsense. 

In the1960s I think only 8 teams qualified for the Euros. If anybody believes the team with Law, Baxter, Johnstone and McNeill would have struggled to qualify for a 24 team Euros, then I would say they're deluded.

Likewise qualification for the World Cup was far more difficult back then. And of course Scottish teams and not just the OF often managed great runs in Europe.

Scotland had several world class players then whereas the last two decades has produced maybe one.

To pretend Scotland wasn't in a far better place in the football world back then doesn't make you remotely Brexity, and to say so is plain daft.

[Guest Bob Mahelp]

3 minutes ago, Lee Van Tee said:

In the1960s I think only 8 teams qualified for the Euros. If anybody believes the team with Law, Baxter, Johnstone and McNeill would have struggled to qualify for a 24 team Euros, then I would say they're deluded.

Likewise qualification for the World Cup was far more difficult back then. And of course Scottish teams and not just the OF often managed great runs in Europe.

Scotland had several world class players then whereas the last two decades has produced maybe one.

To pretend Scotland wasn't in a far better place in the football world back then doesn't make you remotely Brexity, and to say so is plain daft.

You're comparing apples with pears. Yes, the world cup was a smaller tournament, but there were fewer countries in Europe that were any good at football.

The Scandinavian countries were generally garbage, Holland were an amateur side that couldn't qualify for anything until 1974, and most of the eastern block countries were weak or didn't even exist.

Yes,  the OF had decent European runs in the 1960's (as did Dunfermline, Dundee and Killie) but overall I would say that they were diamonds amongst the turds and in general we underachieved as a nation given the players that we had, combined with an infrastructure that had been in place for decades and outstripped almost every other European nation aside from England, well into the 1960's.

As an aside, I find it hard to believe that Scotland is the only country worldwide where computer games have been sold. I presume kids in Belgium, Russia and Azerbaijan have them too ?