Young players need chance to kick on for years

THE leaflets comes through the door or the emails drop in your in-basket, with a list of folk you’ve never heard of grafting for their vote.

Ah, the Football Writers’ Young Player of the Year Award.

Sure, there are council elections going ahead right now as well but most people will find it easier picking a new councillor than selecting Scotland’s best homegrown talent. It’s nigh impossible. The main player award is pretty easy, there are usually five of six candidates and one or two who would be worthy winners no matter how the vote falls or when they are cast.

But doing it for the young player gong? It would be easier finding a politician who tells the truth. No harm to the candidates us hacks managed to dig out.

Calvin Ramsey, Josh Doig, Ross Graham, Nathan Patterson and Stephen Welsh are all talented lads.

Ramsey is the pick of the bunch and deserves his award. He’s been a regular for Aberdeen and probably the one positive from a season the Dons would rather flush down the grubber.

The kid is likely to go to the very top and you’d think Doig would be the same, despite suffering similar circumstances at Hibs.

Graham is another brilliant prospect.

But he’s started just 13 games for Dundee United having spent the first half of the season on loan at Dunfermline.

Patterson is the opposite. The former Rangers kid started as many games for Scotland as he did for Rangers this season, before his January move to Everton. Sign for the Toffees and end up in the sticky stuff.

Meanwhile, Welsh is a first teamer across the city at Celtic but he’s been kept out of the side for the most of the season by Carl Starfelt and Cameron CarterVickers.

That was the shortlist. Good players who either haven’t played as much as they would have liked or have been hauled down by clubs who couldn’t win a cuddly toy in a coconut shy.

The problem is, there wasn’t exactly a ton of kids who could be feeling upset at being left out.

There are some good kids in Scottish football, like Jay Henderson at St Mirren, Josh Campbell at Hibs and a few more at Tannadice.

There’s a raft of them at Rangers as well, with the likes of Alex Lowry,

There aren’t a ton of kids who could feel sad to be left out the voting for award

Tony Weston and Leon King proper prospects.

But they have the same problems as every other young player in this country – getting game time.

We’ve still not figured out a way to get these kids on the pitch in this cut-throat Premiership.

Even with five subs in recent years, they still can’t get a look-in.

Clubs talk the talk but they don’t walk the walk.

Occasionally a Kieran Tierney, Aaron Hickey or Patterson pops up but they are too often gone too quickly.

We’re talking chickenand-egg stuff but unless we crack a few shells the cycle will continue – and it will always be a nightmare when the hacks go to the ballots.

OUR TOP WRITERS GIVE THEIR FEARLESS VERDICTS EVERY DAY IN RECORD SPORT