Celtic’s proposed partnerships could be the shot in the arm the academy needs.

According to reports published yesterday, Celtic are in discussions with East Kilbride and Dumbarton over new co-operation agreements. These partnerships would allow young Celtic players to gain senior football experience in the Scottish lower leagues while remaining closely connected to the club.

I will be honest: this is exactly what Celtic should be doing.

Our academy players need to be sent into senior football rather than being trapped indefinitely in a B Team system that asks them to play in the Lowland League without ever fully preparing them for the demands of Celtic’s first team.

The moment I read the reports, one thought struck me.

About bloody time. We have been saying this for a while now, we need a real pathway. I have been screaming it into the Scottish skies along with many others while nobody at Celtic Park has wanted to listen, but I have never believed the current B Team model produces enough players who are genuinely ready for the first team.

I do not care how many attractive passing moves the team produces against other development sides. I do not care how many Lowland League matches it wins or whether somebody presents statistics suggesting the system is progressing nicely.

Football is not played on spreadsheets.

It is played by grown men fighting for points, contracts, wages and careers. It is played by experienced defenders who have no interest in protecting a young player’s confidence and midfielders who will compete for every loose ball as though their livelihoods depend on it.

That is real football, and that is where Celtic’s youngsters should be learning.

For years, I have watched the club invest enormous amounts of time and money in a B Team system that often feels detached from what the senior side actually requires. Celtic’s first team plays under enormous pressure every week. It performs in front of packed stadiums, travels to hostile grounds and knows that every mistake will be analysed by tens of thousands of supporters.

The B Team does not experience that same reality.

So why do we expect players to make such a gigantic leap overnight?

If the reports are accurate and Celtic are genuinely discussing partnerships with East Kilbride and Dumbarton, perhaps the club is finally beginning to understand what many supporters have argued for years.

Senior football develops footballers. It really can be that simple.

There is nothing artificial, protected or manufactured about it. A young player quickly discovers whether he is ready when a 35-year-old centre-half has no intention of stepping aside for him or helping him feel comfortable.

That is an education no training exercise can reproduce.

I have absolutely nothing against the young players in Celtic’s academy. Quite the opposite. I am desperate for every one of them to succeed. I want to see another Callum McGregor emerge, another James Forrest or another Kieran Tierney: footballers who understand what Celtic means because they have lived with it since childhood.

But talent alone is not enough. Potential is not enough, and impressive social-media highlights certainly are not enough. Before a player is ready to carry the weight of the green and white Hoops, he has to experience proper senior football.

That is why these co-operation agreements make far more sense to me than simply persevering forever with a system which has not delivered enough first-team players.

East Kilbride could offer young footballers meaningful competitive matches in an ambitious environment. Dumbarton could provide another pathway where results matter and every weekend has consequences.

That experience is priceless.

Instead of playing development football where the result can feel secondary, academy players would compete alongside and against professionals with contracts to win, mortgages to pay and reputations to protect. You cannot recreate that atmosphere on a training pitch, no matter how modern the facilities or how talented the coaches may be.

This is where my Ginger Witch instincts begin whispering again.

Some of the greatest lessons come in the messiest conditions: rain pouring down, a difficult pitch, a physical battle, an angry home support and a referee willing to let almost everything go. Those moments build footballers. They reveal character and show which players can respond when a match becomes uncomfortable.

That is where boys begin becoming men. It is why these partnerships could prove to be one of the smartest academy decisions Celtic has made in years.

Martin O’Neill strikes me as someone who understands this instinctively. He comes from a footballing era in which players earned everything.

Nothing was handed to them, nobody wrapped them in cotton wool and advancement came through fighting, learning and improving.

If you were good enough, you eventually reached the top.

That football education created winners.

Perhaps Martin sees what many supporters see: the pathway needs to change. Not because the academy lacks talent and not because the coaches are failing to work hard, but because the game demands more than academy football alone can provide.

I often think about the number of promising young players who have quietly disappeared over the years. Every season appears to produce another exciting prospect, another player described as the next big thing and another youngster supposedly destined for greatness.

Then, slowly, they vanish from view.

Some leave the club. Others stagnate. Many simply fail to bridge the enormous gap between youth football and Celtic’s senior side.

That is heartbreaking because somewhere along the way, talent is being lost. Confidence may be lost with it.

Perhaps we have asked young players to make too large a jump without providing enough stepping stones. East Kilbride and Dumbarton could become precisely those stepping stones.

They are not glamorous or headline-grabbing, but they could be enormously valuable.

I would rather see an academy player complete 35 difficult senior matches than dominate another season of development football. I would choose that every single time.

Senior football teaches positioning, communication, decision-making, resilience, leadership, mental strength and professionalism. Those qualities cannot simply be explained in a coaching session.

They have to be lived.

That is why I sincerely hope these discussions lead to something concrete. I do not see the idea as Celtic lowering its ambitions. I see the club becoming smarter and finally recognising that player development is not solely about producing technically gifted footballers.

It is about producing competitors.

It is about producing leaders.

It is about preparing players who will not freeze the first time 50,000 supporters expect them to deliver.

Perhaps that is the most important lesson of all. You do not become a Celtic player by remaining permanently protected. You become one by surviving difficult footballing environments before you ever walk onto the pitch at Paradise.

I want Celtic’s academy to become one of the finest in Europe, but I do not judge it by the number of trophies won at youth level or by the quality of football played in development matches.

I judge it by the number of players who become genuine Celtic first-team regulars.

That is the only statistic that truly matters.

If East Kilbride and Dumbarton can become part of that journey, then I welcome the idea wholeheartedly. This is not merely about helping those clubs. It is about helping Celtic and producing footballers instead of endlessly developing prospects.

There is a massive difference between those two things.

Perhaps my Ginger Witch spell has finally reached Celtic Park. Perhaps somebody has examined the pathway and admitted that it needs to change. Perhaps this is the beginning of a much more sensible future for the academy.

I sincerely hope so. I want to watch Celtic’s own young players walk out at Paradise ready for the challenge, not because they dominated the Lowland League, but because they have already fought their way through the unforgiving world of senior Scottish football.

That is where real Celtic players are forged: not through comfort or permanent protection, but through genuine competition.

If these co-operation agreements become reality, perhaps Celtic will finally cast aside the illusion that the B Team alone is enough.

I have never believed it was.

And I never will.

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