GUIDING LIGHT
SFA coaching guru says clubs’ door is creaking open at long last
He has the look of a professor and doles out wisdom like a football Pez dispenser.
Unusually in a cut- throat world he commands almost universal approval and respect within the game.
Yet his self- deprecating nature means he sees himself more as the coaching game’s grandfather than its godfather.
Donald Park has still been made an offer he couldn’t refuse though.
And when you hear a man of 63 say he’s excited by a new direction of travel after nearly five decades in the game, it’s hard not to believe meaningful change is in the wind.
Head of the Scottish FA’s world-renowned coach education system for the past eight years, Park’s role was changed last week as part of Project Brave’s attempt to join up the thinking between clubs and country.
Now head of coaching, his new job will see him work directly with the Scotland national youth team coaches but more importantly provide the support and mentoring missing from the current set-up.
He, along with performance director Malky Mackay and director of coaching Jim Fleeting, will now be in clubs and academies on a daily basis asking, ‘ How can we help you make all of us better?’
He’ll also be taking on a brain trust of the game’s best young coaches, asking clubs to supply the pick of their bunch then challenging them to rewrite the manual.
It seems simple enough in theory yet generations of experiencing the ‘yeah but what’s in it for us?’ stand-off between clubs and the governing body has taught Park putting it into practice is always harder.
However, in a rare interview on the day that bid documents went out to clubs for a new-look academy structure, he said: “There’s a direction of travel now, which I haven’t seen in a long time.
“The exciting thing for me is us getting closer to the clubs – as long as they want us in. We need to be able to offer them something they don’t have, help them.
“If we look at our coach education system, we get the guys to a level to pass the course then it’s ‘On you go’.
“This is a chance for us to continue working with them, to develop them because that’s not the end of the journey for them – it should really only be the beginning. That’s the exciting bit for me.
“That sounds like we don’t have a good relationship with clubs already – we do. But this is the first time we’ve actually got to the point where we’re asking ourselves about going down the road together rather than just ‘ What’s in it for me and my club?’
“Greater good has always been a struggle and I get that. The nature of the beast is clubs look after their own interests – they have a duty to themselves to do it.
“As a nation we’re scared of sharing things but for the first time in a long time the door feels open.
“So we’ll be at the clubs as often as they’d like us to be but it’s about helping them establish best practice, not us imposing anything on them.”
Caol-born Park’s passion for the game burns as brightly as it did the day he got his break from schools football to play for Inverness Caley in the Highland League.
A winger and midfielder who signed his first pro deal with Hearts in 1972, his career spanned more than 500 games in two spells with the Jambos plus stints with Partick Thistle, Brechin and Meadowbank. But he credits Celtic legend Bertie Auld with igniting his interest in coaching.
He said: “I did my B Licence in 1981 and that was down to wee Bertie. I remember seeing the poster in the dressing room at Firhill and he asked me if I fancied it. I said I didn’t know, he said the club would pay so I said I fancied it – the canny teuchter in me.
“But I went down to Largs and I loved it. It’s also where I made my first connection with Alex Miller who went on to give me my first full-time job in coaching at Hibs.”
Park had one brief season in management, taking on a by-then beleaguered but still pre- Livingston Meadowbank. But he said: “That season made me think, ‘ Nah, management’s not for me – coaching is’.” His reputation for that grew, particularly with his influence on the young Hibs side who went on to make a generation’s worth of transfer fees and headlines for the club.
He said: “I still get a good feeling knowing you’ve affected a young player’s development, same as you do when you see a coach fly the nest and get a job. Although I must have scarred a few players in my time.
“The one thing I have done is mellowed. Players, coaches, attitudes, they’ve all changed over the course of 40-odd years and we need to move with them. I was daft as a coach – I was aggressive, demanding, I was brought up in that era as a player. You look at the managers you learned from, someone like Bertie.
“He was brilliant for me as a manager but brutal – honest, straight up and down, but brutal. But again it was a different era.
“The idea of sports science back in the 70s and 80s was, ‘ You’ve thrown up, we’ve done enough’.
“Things have changed a lot. I did my Pro Licence on the first course back in 1998 and what we’re asking them to do now I’m not sure I would get it.
“I have enough trouble putting things down in English far less learning a foreign language like we demand these days.
“We continue to raise the bar – we like to challenge, take the guys outside their comfort zone. And when they enter the real world the chances are they’ve covered it as best we can – forewarned is forearmed. It’s like a bird sending the fledglings out of the nest. Then you spend the rest of your days looking for their results on a Saturday night.”
It’s not without its frustrations though, especially when the ones you’re convinced will be success stories don’t fly.
“Look at Derek Riordan,” Park sighed wistfully. “I’m so happy to see Deek back playing at Edinburgh City but depressed for him at the same time.
“He’s the best player with technique I worked with. It’s so sad that someone of his ability at 32 didn’t do what I thought he was capable of doing. I’m delighted he’s playing but it feels like a waste.”
Park served under Miller, Alex McLeish and Franck Sauzee at Hibs, with John Robertson at Inverness and Hearts, went back to the Highlands with Charl ie Christie and ended his club career with Mixu Paatelainen at Easter Road.
Since then his work with the SFA has also seen him take on duties with the Under-21 team, an experience that opened his eyes further to the blockage in the game Mackay is trying to fix – the lack of firstteam game time at the most crucial of ages.
Park said: “This is about changing attitudes and perceptions. You can change regimes – and we have done – but the hard part is the final step for players because I understand managers playing the guys they think will keep them in a job.
“We’ll all work together though. We need something to challenge coaches. We have to ask ourselves what the game is going to look like in four, five, 10 years. What are the differences going to be? How do you stay with the curve or get ahead of it?
“Will tackling be allowed in the future? Will we be allowed to head the ball? How do you imagine the future and create it, not just react to it? What will the styles be, how does the game evolve? And I love the fact there are guys who do feel a duty of care to the game.
“Look at Ian Cathro. He’s terrific, really analytical. I hear people calling him a laptop coach but that’s wrong. He coaches on the grass not on the computer. His stuff is great.
“He sees things other coaches don’t see. He has a realisation of things, a really good plan. I hear the scepticism but what is it they call that? Cognitive dissonance?
“But the question we’re now asking is ‘How do you want us to help?’ We have to help everyone. We have to keep minds and doors open.”
As a nation we are scared of sharing things but the door feels open