Top coach insists quick-fix mentality is at the root of decline
He spent more than a decade turning out young talent for Scottish clubs.
So when Stevie Campbell suggests quick-fixes are a major contributor to our game’s long-term problems, he isn’t just speaking from the heart.
Storied stints in the youth set-ups at Dundee, Inverness Caledonian Thistle and, most famously, Dundee United, saw Campbell mentor a string of young stars.
The likes of Lee Wilkie, Scott Robertson, Stuart Armstrong, Johnny Russell, Ryan Gauld and John Souttar all rose to stardom on his watch.
Now, two-and-a-half years after leaving Tannadice, he is coaching a new generation of youngsters through his own Stevie Campbell Football Academy.
He is loving life – and he’s still involved in the senior game as a coach with Brechin City.
But he is as concerned as anyone over Scotland’s failure to develop its top young talent into players capable of shining on the world stage.
The Sunday Post last week quizzed the likes of outgoing SFA director of coaching, Jim Fleeting, and former Scotland boss Craig Brown on the reasons behind the national team’s 20-year absence from major tournaments.
Now Campbell, with a working lifetime spent immersed in our game, is ready to have his say.
“I was 15 years at three different clubs, doing basically the same job,” he said.
“It was Dundee for five years, Inverness for less than a year, then United for 10, and I had seven different titles.
“The job didn’t change, but the different titles were needed because of the changes made to the development set-up over those years.
“When I started, I was an Under-18s coach – that was the area of focus.
“Then it went to Under-19s, before it became the Under-20s, with two over-age players.
“You had various people at the top changing the whole development progamme at that time.
“All these changes, looking back, came with different people being at the head of the development programme in Scotland. That can’t be healthy.
“I always think it’s like being a player at a club, and having multiple different managers over a period of time.
“Okay, my spell coaching at these clubs was a 15-year spell, but I still don’t think all those changes were a good thing. “When you’re changing something like that so often, it’s obviously not working at the top end. Something’s not right. Nothing’s bedding in.
“So, in my opinion, I don’t think all these changes allowed the system to develop.
“What is the end product? Before we’ve got to the end product, we’ve been changing it again, and, as I said, I don’t think that’s healthy.” Campbell’s own academy has the Icelandic model of football development as its blueprint.
That means highly qualified coaches – including ex-professionals like Gary Bollan, Barry Smith, Robbie Raeside and Paul Mathers – coaching kids to love playing the game in top-quality facilities. Since taking his own path, Campbell has found plenty of competitors, including the SFA, doing the same thing.
But he reckons they are all pushing towards an identical goal in a world that, for today’s children, is very different to the one of old.
“We’re all trying to do the same thing – coax kids into playing football,” he offered. “There’s a lot of work going on a grassroots level, with the SFA and with things like what I’m doing.
“There’s my football academy, there’s things like Box Soccer – which is Ian Cathro’s brainchild – you’ve got Skilz Academy, which is another project in Dundee, then there are the camps run during the school holidays by the SFA.
“So the work is happening, but if I go back to my childhood, there were no camps. “I was out playing with my pals – and everybody did that.
“It’s different now. Football is competing with other activities to get kids’ attention.”
Fortunately, Campbell believes football has something none of those other things can lay claim to – and he embodies it. “I’ve spent years coaching and developing kids at the top end,” he continues.
“But to see them now, watching them develop – particularly the younger ones, who are just discovering the game – is amazing. I love it.”
Campbell isn’t alone. If it stays that way, there will always be hope.