Legends in the reserves taught Stevie so much
Stevie Crawford has backed Scottish football’s decision to reinstate reserve football after recalling how he was schooled as a youngster playing against the likes of Alex McLeish, David Narey and Paul Hegarty. The reformed SPFL reserve league kicks off tomorrow, nine years after it was replaced by the youth development set-up. Crawford returned to former club Dunfermline this summer as first-team coach and will double up as manager of the Pars’ second-string side, who begin their campaign against Celtic. And the former Raith Rovers, Hibernian and Scotland striker is convinced the matches can fast-track the development of young players if his own experience is anything to go by. Crawford said: “Reserve football was brilliant for me. “Even in the reserve league east with Raith Rovers, before we got promotion to the Premier League, I was playing against boys coming to the end of their careers. “There were guys like Alex McLeish, David Narey and Paul Hegarty, guys who were probably interested in going into coaching. You learned very quickly. “I was naturally very quick but when you came up against these guys, and decent players at Hearts and Hibs at the time, all of a sudden it didn’t matter how quick you were because they read the game so well and knew exactly where I was going to run to. “And they just put their arm across you – it was like running into a wall at times! “They had years of experience and that taught me more. I remember Jimmy Nicholl saying: ‘I can’t teach you that, you have to work out a way to overcome that.’ “That could teach you more than maybe two months of training, and hopefully the reserve league will bring that.” n Queen’s Park’s trip to Oswestry to face The New Saints in the next round of the Irn-Bru Cup gives the Spiders the chance to repeat one of their most-famous wins. But no one can claim to have been at the first game as it took place 135 years ago! The Glasgow side competed in the FA Cup in season 1883-84, and defeated Crewe Alexandra 10–0 away before seeing off Manchester FC 15–0 in the first-ever FA Cup tie in Scotland. That set up a trip to play Oswestry, and the Hampden men won 7-1. After going on to defeat Aston Villa 6–1, Old Westminsters 1–0 and Blackburn Olympic 4–1, the Spiders lost 2-1 to Blackburn Rovers in the Final.