Our kids could learn a lot from guys like Archie
IAN DURRANT believes it’s time to give young players a tougher introduction to the professional game.
The former Rangers star was coaching the rising stars at Ibrox before leaving the club last year.
He’s currently assistant manager at Dumbarton, but took time out to help promote the new autobiography of former Rangers, Aberdeen, Manchester United and Everton assistant-manager Archie Knox, titled The School of Hard Knox.
Durrant claims the modern game can still learn a lot from veteran coaches like Knox.
He said: “I remember speaking to Archie and he told me that when he was coming to the end of his playing career, around the age of 35, he was playing reserve-team football with kids.
“When you look at things now, there’s not the same number of players coming through because they don’t get developed in the right way.
“If you speak to a lot of former pros from my era, they’d tell you about playing in the reserves with seasoned pros.
“Young boys are now seen as Under-20 players rather than reserve players.
“When I was 16, I played in the Rangers reserves in front of Derek Johnstone and Colin McAdam in central defence. If you weren’t doing your job, they told you.
“It was the school of hard knocks. If you didn’t survive, then you didn’t play. Somebody else would come in. Now they have the luxury of academies.
“I say we should get back to playing with men and learning your game.
“That would benefit the youth. It’s the way Archie has led his life.
“There would be no slacking and no taking shortcuts when he was about.
“Everything was mapped out in the morning, training-wise, and it would be an eyeopener for some of the young kids.
“There is a softness in them now.”
While Archie Knox often comes over as the sergeant-major’ type of coach, Durrant recalls plenty of laughs when the pair were together in football.
However, the 50-yearold does confess to one incident when Knox lost his sense of humour.
He said: “There’s always got to be room for fun, and Archie was another great believer in that.
“He’d always say in training, ‘A smile costs you nothing’.
“But I remember doing pre-season training in Italy when Ally McCoist and I had a room next to Archie.
“One day we stole his wee black book. It had 25 years of training history in it. He’d compiled a dossier of training from his time at Aberdeen, Forfar, Dundee etc, all the way through. It was like a bible.
“Our patio doors went flying open while we were having a kip. All I heard was him shouting, ‘You’ve got 30 seconds’.
“So we returned his black book with our tails between our legs.”
“Needless to say, there was a fair bit of running that afternoon – we couldn’t get that bit out of the book!”