Watching the boys lift the cup was emotional for me as my worry is we could be losing a generation of players.. we’re in a crisis and I fear potential Scotland stars of the future will be lost to game
SAYS ALISTAIR STEVENSON
Alistair Stevenson watched with a tear in his eye as SEVEN of his academy graduates lifted the Betfred Cup.
But the Saints youth guru’s sense of satisfaction after their success last weekend was short-lived.
That historic win over Livingston was followed by the worry that a generation of young footballers are being lost to the game.
Stevenson believes the carnage created by the Covid-19 lockdown of grassroots football has been devastating.
And some youngsters are dropping off the talent conveyor belt due to a year-long hiatus in their progress.
Stevenson knows the situation better than most. His status as star maker is unsurpassed and his back catalogue of former students reads like a who’s who in the game.
A nine-year spell at Hibs saw him nurture around £ 20million worth of talent including Steven Fletcher, Scott
Brown, Kevin Thomson, Ian Murray, Garry O’Connor and Derek Riordan.
Stevenson fears his latest batch of Saints stars could be the last and claims grassroots football in this country is in the midst of a crisis that requires radical solutions – or else the damage could be beyond repair.
He said: “The young ones have missed a year of football.
“Whether it’s playing with their pals down the park or elsewhere, they have hardly been allowed out of the house, never mind to play football.
“The pandemic has taken one year of football out of their lives.
“The older boys who play under-18 and under-16 have had their futures taken out from underneath them.
“The boys who would have been able to leave school last summer and sign for clubs have been in limbo.
“It’s killing careers before they even get started.
“Some of these players would have progressed in normal times.
“There will be potential Scotland stars of the future around the country who will be lost to the game.
“Nobody at our level knows what’s happening, when we will get playing again. There are boys who don’t know whether there will be a contract for them.
“What’s happened will inevitably have stunted their development.
“Football’s a game where you improve with practice. You work to make your weaknesses better. All of a sudden that practice time has been taken away from them. It’s difficult for coaches to liaise with the kids as they are on furlough.
“There are just so many difficulties that have arisen over these horrendous last 12 months. When we do return, all of these kids will have to come back in and start from where they were one year ago.
“Some of them will have grown massively in that year, some will have lost a bit of coordination – we just don’t know what it will be like.
“Some will have lost interest. They may have found other things to do in the house such as computer games.
“We are in a crisis. We need a games programme as before we know it, it’ll be the summer and we will have nothing.”
“It’s now down to the Scottish government, the SFA and Club Academy Scotland to take the lead and get information out to us.
“What I’d want is for the season missed to be re-run. It’s costing careers.”
Stevenson sat through a nervy 90 minutes at Hampden last weekend.
The cup final brought back memories of happier times when Covid hadn’t hit the national consciousness and Saints
were celebrating cup glory. He said: “All that was going through my mind as I watched the game at home was wanting us to win – and hoping the young boys, who had come through my academy, did well.
“It wasn’t a classic final but I was desperate for them to do well.
“David Wotherspoon and Callum Booth both came through at Hibs when I was there. We had Zander Clark, Liam Gordon, Jason Kerr, Ali McCann, Chris Kane and Stevie May, who have all come out of the Saints academy.
“It was hugely emotional and the only shame was the lack of fans.
“When we won the Scottish Cup Final in 2014, our chairman gave all of the academy kids a ticket and it proved to be such a memorable day. We organised buses and we all got to go.
“Due to Covid-19, nobody had the chance to do that this time around.
“It was still emotional. What a sense of achievement for the club and everyone who’d played their part. To win it with so many of our homegrown players was fantastic.
“My sadness is that it may never happen again. That is a huge worry.
“It was a struggle to make our academy feel a part of that success, to get a message to them to watch the game, to feel proud and to support their club.
“It’s been a struggle to make them feel as if they’re an important part of this club.”
Stevenson is in his second stint with Saints, hav ing ser ved the McDiarmid Park youth set- up between 1993 and 2003, and is now relying on technology to keep the show on the road. He said: “St Johnstone invested in performance apps that the kids are being encouraged to work through. “Whether it’s a Ronaldo turn or whatever, we show them what to do and they can send back clips of them trying it in their gardens.
“So we know who’s practising and who’s not. We also have an app that al lows them to watch their games and analyse things – but it’s been so difficult to keep it all patched together. “We have six academy teams star t ing at under-11s through to under-18s so it’s the best part of 70 to 80 kids.
“Nothing compares to being on the training field and passing on information. Not being able to do that will impact on Scottish football for years. I hate to think how the kids have been impacted.”