FORGOTTEN GENERATION
Crisis hits youngsters hard, says Mellon
We have to do the best we can to make sure they can keep on developing
ANEW lost generation of Scottish footballers will be left permanently scarred by the Covid crisis — unless clubs find ways to keep them active and on the books during lockdown.
And Dundee United boss Micky Mellon says the current suspension could do as much lasting damage as the teachers’ strike of the 1980s, which effectively shut down school football for two years.
On the back of Celtic furloughing their Under-18s, and a number of other Premiership clubs either following suit or working with amalgamated ‘development squads’ of elite youngsters, Mellon praised the Tannadice board for finding a way to keep their academy system intact — despite all youth competitions being put on hold.
‘I don’t want to go against any other clubs, say we’re doing it better than anyone else,’ he explained. ‘We made a decision based on what we want to do. And we kept them all here.
‘Because we had a conversation — and I believe you might remember this — about the teachers’ strike and how it affected Scottish football.
‘Because all those school kids, and I was one of them, missed out on two years of development.
‘I think Covid will do the same if we don’t try the best to negate the lack of football these lads, these young men, are going to get.
‘So what we decided here, which is great credit to the chairman and to (sporting director) Tony Asghar, is to keep that going.
‘There’s no doubt they won’t get enough competitive football because they won’t have matches.
‘But, if we can come up with the right training that puts the demands on them, we can still develop them.
‘So that’s how we’ve decided to do it. We’re not competing with anybody else.
‘We just feel that’s the best way that we can try to make sure we’re developing our brilliant young players. Because we have got some brilliant talent here.
‘There’s a real good group here who I think will come through.
‘We were out with them this morning, we’ll be out again later with them — and they will train again tomorrow, separately from the first team.
‘Some of them will train with the first-team group but the other ones, I’ll be working with them to try to bring them on.’
The teachers’ strike effectively saw all extracurricular activities put on ice during the labour dispute, with schools football — then a huge part of player development — falling victim to work-to-rule.
Mellon fears an extended spell away from clubs will be just as damaging to the current generation.
He believes even the best training will leave young players missing a crucial element of their development — competitive fixtures.
And the lack of games will make it almost impossible for coaches to make accurate assessments when it comes to awarding professional contracts.
‘I think it’s going to have an impact,’ said the experienced coach. ‘When I look at my own group, the only way you are going to get better is not just training but playing games.
‘You fix the things that went wrong in the exam — the game — by addressing them in training, try to improve them for the next game.
‘The games is where you look at them and see where they are as players. ‘As coaches, we know what we need to work on in training. The next game he goes into, let’s see if we can make improvements. ‘Some of my players have had two or three games. They’ve had no exams, no measurements of where they’re up to. ‘So there will be, especially for the second-year kids, difficulties. ‘How are you to make a decision on whether they’re going to be footballers if you’ve not seen them play? ‘That is happening all over. In England, I’ve got my own boys, my own sons, trying to make it as young footballers — and they’re going through that, as well.
‘We have to try to do the best we can to make up for that gap in their development, creating the right training sessions and help these people along.
‘These are big years in their development. You only have to ask anyone involved in developing human beings to see that these are really impressionable years for these footballers.
‘If you allow that to drift and don’t fix it, you will have problems.
‘We’re trying to understand it and attack it with the development they need.’