Yesterday, Celtic were finally given final approval to play in the Lowland League, along with the B team for Hearts and the club at Ibrox. A lot of people seem happy at this development but I’ll be honest with you; it makes me despair.
This is a league below all four of our divisions.
What are these guys learning playing at that level?
Smooth, silky skills or how to cope with blood and thunder football?
If this is the level our academy players have to graduate at we’ll be lucky to put anyone from there into the first team for the foreseeable future. You cannot step up from that level to the first team.
I don’t blame Celtic for this, not in the least.
We have no choice but to play the cards we’re dealt.
I blame the governing bodies for calamitous decision making going back years, including allowing the old Rangers to pull out of the reserve league when they were on the downslope towards their meltdown. That was another one of those acts done to appease them and which had perfectly predictable consequences; other clubs felt empowered to do the same.
At some point the SFA basically abandoned the idea of youth football completely, and left it to the clubs. Talk about a scandalous abrogation of responsibility, one of the many they are responsible for.
And it will have consequences for the whole game.
Our young players should be learning the skills that are going to make them stars. There is nothing to learn at that level playing against part time footballers. It sets the whole youth development effort back years but shockingly it’s all we’ve got.
But no matter how it’s dressed up, the road to the Champions League does not go through the Scottish Lowland League.
As long as that’s the stopping off point for players trying to transition from our under 18’s to the first team squad we will be damned lucky to graduate a handful of them in the next ten years.
There has to be a better solution than this.
Talking Heads comes to mind…..we’re on the road to nowhere.