LEARNING FROM THE BOTTOM UP
Bates has always been willing to try unexpected in his football education
EAST Stirlingshire’s final few years as a senior club were bleaker than a Mike Leigh drama. Without the occasional comedic moment to lighten the mood.
Bottom of the fourth tier at the end of seasons 2011-12 and 2012-13, trips to Ochilview required both compassion and understanding. The air around the old place smelled not of hot meat drinks and greasy pies but desperation.
This, though, was David Bates’ field of dreams. The place where, in early 2015, Raith Rovers believed the teenage central defender would either sink or swim.
He played 17 games in that loan period, winning seven and losing seven. Not bad going by the pitiful standards of that era.
His last match was a 5-1 home hammering by Alloa but, by then, the Shire had already done enough to ensure that Montrose, for once, were the butt of all the jokes.
In the intervening years, Bates and the Shire haven’t so much gone in different directions as inhabited different worlds.
In 2016, the minnows were relegated to the Lowland League and have been there ever since. They play Edinburgh University tomorrow night as they seek to improve upon the 11th place they currently occupy.
Bates, meanwhile, will be bracing himself to make his Scotland debut in Albania 24 hours later. That is a consequence of a move from Stark’s Park to Rangers two years back, followed by a bold decision to embrace a left-field move to Hamburg this summer.
Like former Queen’s Park ball boy Andy Robertson, those formative years are something not to be glossed over but to be celebrated. They are veritable sources of inspiration for those who find themselves struggling to catch the eye of the one man and his dog bearing witness to fledgling talents in the raw.
‘East Stirling was my first professional club and you learn a lot down there,’ recalled 22-year-old Bates.
‘All the cute stuff, how to protect yourself when jumping for headers, stuff you probably wouldn’t get away with in Germany.’
Isn’t this the enduring beauty of the game? The fact that, for all it has become homogenised, unromantic and obsessed with money, a player can still make such gargantuan leaps?
‘I think it just shows that if you work hard, put the effort in and keep plugging away, sometimes it can work out,’ added Bates.
‘You will get that move or you will play at bigger clubs.’
Bates always allowed himself to dream but, unsurprisingly, in those early jousts against Elgin City, East Fife and the like, his imagination didn’t quite extend to playing for a former European Cup-winning club.
‘I wouldn’t have thought about it,’ he said. ‘I have always just got on with what was in hand. I never really thought about the future — that big jump.’
It arrived sooner than he expected. A boyhood Rangers fan from the coastal village of Limekilns, Bates made eight appearances in his first season at Ibrox and 20 in his second.
Talk of a new contract was slow to surface, though, and by the time it did, it was already too late.
News that Bates had already committed to the German giants prompted Graeme Murty, then Rangers manager, to suggest that money had been the only motivation. The player flatly rejects that.
‘I’m playing at the highest level week in, week out,’ he countered.
‘The football is very technical and I’m learning a different side of the game. It was definitely the right decision.
‘For me, the Bundesliga 2 is a better league (than Scotland). Every team is competitive and you go away to grounds and it’s a sell-out. You’re up against different types of players and all teams are tactically switched on. I feel like I’m learning so much.
‘I’d totally recommend it. To step out of your comfort zone and learn your trade somewhere else is the best thing I could have done.’
He applied himself unreservedly at Rangers but feels the scope for self-improvement is greater where he is now employed.
‘The training sessions are a lot longer. You put in the hours and work,’ he noted. ‘The language is obviously different so you probably need to tune in more, listen and pick out what you can.
‘Football has its own language, so you always know what you have to do in training, for example.’
With each passing week, the northern port city becomes a little less strange.
‘You have Lewis Holtby who speaks very good English and probably understands my accent more,’ he explained.
‘I try to speak German and I do three lessons a week with my girlfriend, so she can hopefully get a job. She has come over with me, which has probably helped.
‘The family side of things is different; you can FaceTime them and most home games you have one member of family out there.’
In the digital age, there is no reason for them to impart bulletins from the south side of Glasgow. Bates’ departure from Rangers under freedom of contract is no reflection on his affection for the club.
He was — and is — a supporter and has consequently enjoyed Steven Gerrard’s colourful start to life at Ibrox, without harbouring regrets about watching it from afar. When asked if he wished he’d stuck around, he replied: ‘No, not really.
‘Rangers were always a big club and they were always going to get a good manager in and eventually get back to playing and doing well in Europe.
‘I have watched most of their European games this year and they have done well. I am a Rangers fan and I think it’s great what they are doing. I’m always sitting there supporting them.
‘I still speak to a couple of the boys and, when I was with the Under-21s, I caught up with Ross McCrorie and roomed with Glenn Middleton the last time. ‘So I am delighted for Rangers. ‘Obviously, I am at Hamburg now and have my own career and need to focus on being in Germany and playing my football.’
With a population of 1.8million, Hamburg is home to three times as many people as Glasgow. At the recent derby with St Pauli, 57,000 fans were present.
‘I liked the Old Firm goldfish bowl thing because I got to play at the top level,’ reflected Bates.
‘Hamburg is the same. It is similar to Glasgow, with the media and the fans. You also need to win every game.
‘I think the size of the club means we should be up there (at the top of the Bundesliga).
‘The day before the derby we had 2,000 fans at training — all the ultras. They make the atmosphere at the games very good.’
The Loro Borici Stadium in Shkoder on Saturday will not be quite as raucous but the importance of the game cannot be overstated.
For the young man who, until so recently, battled every second week at Ochilview simply to remain relevant, there can never be anything to fear.