EVERY OTHER SATURDAY - No Pain, No Gain For Rangers
August 18th, 2006 by Fraser CampbellThe loan signings of Manchester United youngsters Phil Bardsley and Lee Martin have done a fair bit to quell the fears of Rangers fans worried about our thin and unbalanced squad.
Martin, an exciting 2 footed winger came on and looked the part in our disappointing draw against Dunfermline on Sunday while Bardsley may well be the tough tackling right back we?ve been looking for pretty much since Gary Stevens left the club.
But the fact that a club the size of Rangers is taking Premiership youth players on loan gives a more stirring indication to the financial state of not only RFC, but the whole of the Scottish game.
Where Celtic once had Sutton Larsson and Hartson, they now have Beattie, Miller and Zurawski.
Where Rangers once had Van Bronkhorst, Albertz, Tugay, Reina and De Boer, we now have a selection of youngsters and Bosmans.
Fans from other clubs meanwhile have had to contend with a succession of trialists, signings from clubs in North Africa and guys unwanted at clubs in League 2.
It?s common knowledge that SPL clubs divide up significantly less than clubs in the Premiership and that chasing European respectability has saddled clubs with a debt burden it is taking years to sort out.
Celtic have recently slashed their debt burden to less than ?9m and Rangers have also pumped the bulk of the ?18m they received as part of a merchandising deal with JJB Sports into managing our overdraft, some say with the future sale of the club in mind.
Even Hearts and Dundee United, the only other clubs in the league who aren?t just struggling to survive, have spent frugally by anyone?s standards.
It has led to a marked devaluation in what?s on offer to the fans. During a discussion on a fans forum yesterday on who the most famous player in the SPL is now that Roy Keane has retired, someone suggested 40 year old Falkirk and Trinidad and Tobago midfielder Russell Latapy. The sad thing is they were not far wrong.
Many fans have become annoyed at finding themselves paying out more and more cash for less and less glamour, but the sliver lining is there is you want to look for it.
There is a reason Scotland?s Under 19?s reached the final of the recent European Championships. There is a reason Scotland?s first team looks at it?s strongest in years.
Lack of cash is forcing the unthinkable, the abandonment of wholesale foreign imports.
For years Scottish clubs flooded their teams with foreign players often not because they were better but because they were cheaper, cheaper than buying Scots players and cheaper than having a youth policy. That?s all changed now and most teams in the SPL have young Scots well worth a look.
From a Rangers perspective, we are seeing plenty of evidence of these changes.
New manager Paul Le Guen has so far favoured the exciting and tenacious left back Steven Smith, cultured midfielder Charlie Adam and flawed but improving right back Alan Hutton in the starting line up.
Fans favourite winger Chris Burke has also seen plenty of action and when club Captain Barry Ferguson returns from injury we could see a Rangers side with 5 club reared players in the first team; something that hasn?t happened at Ibrox for something approaching 25 years.
Rangers have also recently appointed youth coaches Tommy Wilson and Billy Kirkwood, widely acknowledged as the best men available for the job in order to further boost our development programme.
Whether these youngsters can meet the extraordinary demands of RFC fans remains to be seen but seeing young Scots in the team, and seeing the youth infrastructure significantly overhauled should go a long way towards tempering fan disappointment in the lack of spending on big name players.
Who knows, we Scots might even be able to give the import-choked representatives of the Premiership a game before too long and we may even eventually get back to where we were in club terms in the late 60?s and early 70s ? competing at the highest level in Europe with teams entirely made up of home grown players. Wouldn?t that be something?
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August 18th, 2006 at 12:33 pm
It is all too easy to simply blame the influx of foreigners as the reason for the plight of the Scottish game, and I do not deny that it had an effect, but by the mid to late 80’s when it really kicked in there was already a dirth of young Scottish talent available. Unlike in England where there was government and FA support for football academies and a school system which still supported extra-carricular activites such as football.
In Scotland since ‘81 or ‘82 you had local government refusing to pay teachers for there time. You have a football association who has resoundingly failed the youth football system in Scotland for over 30 years and is unaswerable to the fans. As long as we blame the influx of players as the sole reason for the games demise we will not be able to rebuild in my opinion.
Last season we saw a Rangers team which at times had as many as 6, 7 and even 8 Scottish players on the field I am as happy as anyone about that but they still have to be good enough to pull on the jersey. It will take time to get a youth system that works but at times I doubt if the interest is really there anymore….
August 18th, 2006 at 1:21 pm
Yeah I wondered if anyone would mention the teachers strike - it certainly didn’t help. Also the selling off of playing fields was a big factor in stifling the game as well.
You can really blame anything from games consoles to the fact that the streets aren?t as safe as they were for kids to play in but the point I was trying to make was that Scottish clubs used to bring through their own players then stopped as it became cheaper to bring in guys from overseas.
It also became necessary to have cheap, decent quality sooner rather than later in order to compete with an Old Firm who were spending massively beyond their means. As such, many clubs scrapped youth teams altogether.
I?m not having a go at foreigners ? it just simply became the norm in Scotland to bring a cheap, experienced player in rather than give a youngster a chance.
That?s changed now that clubs can?t even afford the cheap foreigners.
Most clubs are well in the process of reviving their youth policies with Hibs particularly noted for having brought through the likes of Derek Riordan, Gary O?Connor, Scott Brown, Kevin Thompson, Steven Whittaker and Gary Caldwell all at the same time. Most of these lads have been capped already and will go on to have big futures.
Alan made the point to me that fewer players going to England or abroad hasn?t helped either and that?s obviously a factor as well, but I still think the influx of foreign players in the 90?s was the main problem, coupled with a lull in the quality of Scottish players who were around at the time generally.
Rangers and Celtic brought them in to try and compete in Europe while everyone else brought them in as part of a desperate attempt to compete with the Old Firm
August 18th, 2006 at 3:24 pm
I think you’re quite right about the foreigners being the main problem with the decline in young homegrown players coming through Fraser (trying not to sound like a Daily Mail article here!) and it’s the cheap foreigners in both England and Scotland that have prevented young Scottish, Welsh and both strands of Irish players getting as many chances in the top divisions in England and Scotland.
The money that’s floating around the English Premiership means that they won’t have to pursue youth policies like their Scottish counterparts for a few years yet but if the Sky TV bubble finally does burst or guys like Roman Abramovich get bored then they’ll have to find some way to compensate and maybe then we’ll see young British players getting a chance in the first teams at a higher level again.
August 18th, 2006 at 3:42 pm
Ha ha yeah, I don?t mean to sound as if I?m railing against foreigners for the sake of it. I think the England team has suffered greatly and will continue to do so because of the influx of players from overseas.
Critical positions like left midfield, right back and goalkeeper have been problems for England for years because of it. Who comes in if Neville is unfit? Luke Young? Who slots in for Robinson? Green? They must have capped every left sided player they possibly could in the last few years and look like they will plum for either Richardson or Downing - both good but certainly not great players.
A nation the size of England should have 2 or 3 for every position but instead they have half a team of real quality and another half of glamorised journeymen, in international terms at least.
The problem is the Premiership is so awash with cash, managers can virtually afford to assemble fantasy league sides because the players are desperate to come and earn the big money. Would you knock back Ballack on a free? Of course not, but if even the likes of Portsmouth can afford to bid ?9m for a player like Muntiari what chance does a youngster have?
At least a couple of decent prospects have landed up at Rangers in the form of Bardsley and Martin, and that might be something you see a lot more of ? young English players at big clubs moving North to get a game.
August 18th, 2006 at 3:45 pm
Thats all well and good but the old firm are an easy target, they reacted to the pressures put on them to try and compete not only domestically but in europe as well where they could recoup some of the investment through TV rights. That was nothing new, the problem was the amount of TV revenue getting pumped into football down south domestically at the expense of the other home countries. I have always wondered why the monopolies commission were never brought in to investigate.
Seriously though at it’s height the TV money even the old firm got amounted to no more than 2 or 3 million a season and more recently it was the short-sighted chairmen in the teams outside of the old-firm that meant we are left with Setanta and the piddling amounts they put back into the game.
For me the biggest problem has been the boards of Hearts, Hibs, Motherwell, both Dundee teams, Aberdeen and the rest who have not put there money where their mouth is and taken their clubs forward. We now are seeing it with Hearts but how are they doing it? by bringing in on loan nearly 20 players not even buying the players…and what are the Hearts fans saying, with them being some of the most vocal detractors of the old-firm? They are saying “bring it on we want more of the same.”