We Can Get More People Involved - If The Clubs Work Harder

OVER my several decades in the Fourth Estate, I have worked with some highly-skilled operators, and my share of charlatans. I have learned from some of the Gods of the game – McLaren, McMurtrie, Mair and Meek in rugby – “Dan” Archer and Hughie Taylor in football, John Downie in both, and Doug Gillon and Sandy Sutherland in general sport.

I have also shared press boxes with guys who struggle with joined-up thinking, far-less joined-up writing. Actually, some of the best practitioners of the art of sports-writing are relatively unsung. For instance, for all the publicity he gets, for all his liking for succulent lamb, Jim Traynor is, in my opinion the poorer football writer in his family – elder brother John is much-more talented.

Today I want to base my blog around two of the Scottish Sun's finest. A couple of guys I first got to know when they were on the lower rungs of the ladder, working for Ayrshire weekly newspapers. They are Iain King and Scott Campbell. Their stories have something to teach Scottish Rugby I feel.

Scott Campbell is a name known only to the cognoscenti of two of the hardest games in the world. He covers ice hockey and non-league, mainly Junior football for the Sun. He is also, along with his lovely wife, super-sub Margret, one half of one of the Scottish media's most-talented couples.

 

Scott Campbell - Finally living the dream of being an Ayr United player

Scott has covered more Talbot v Cumnock “wars” than I have had hot dinners. He is the go-to man if you want to know anything about real fitba, as practised in the heartlands of Scottish football – the former mining areas of Ayrshire, Lanarkshire, Fife and the Lothians. He is also a bloody good writer.

An Honest Man of Ayr, Scott's natural habitat is that old press box at Somerset Park. He would dearly have loved to have pulled on the black and white for Ally, but, it never happened – until now. Because, this week, Scott is in Portugal, playing for the Ayr United Walking Football team in a tournament.

At the start of his sixth decade, he is finally living the dream – paying for Ayr United.

Kingie abdicated from the top job in Scottish football. He was, while Sports Editor of the Sun, also Right Worthy Master of that elite group – The Lap Top Loyal. He had names such as Ally McCoist and Barry Ferguson on speed dial.

But, he chucked it all in to follow his dream. Because, Kingie was a poacher who yearned to be a gamekeeper. He worked as a coach with East Kilbride and BSC Glasgow in the Lowland League, then was Chief Executive at Airdrie, before, in his sixth decade, making a real leap of faith and leaving Scotland, for a youth coaching post in Canada, where he now lives, and works, coaching youngsters with North Toronto Nitros SC.

As you would expect from an award-winning journalist and author, Mr King writes a jolly good blog, in which he outlines his experiences of coaching football in a land where, no matter how well the game does, you can only ever see Soccer (as we must call it in North America) being, at best, second to ice hockey.

 Coach Iain King - His Canadian experiences have lessons for Scottish Rugby

What I have learned from following Iain's blog, and reading-up on North Toronto Nitros is, in a city where the Maple Leafs (ice hockey), Blue Jays (baseball) and Raptors (basketball) are the big sporting cheeses – clubs like the Nitros have to channel their inner Avis Car Rental and “try harder,” if only to survive.

As we all know, Canadian winters are a damned sight harsher than we get in Scotland. Three feet of snow to the Canucks is a “mild” winter, so, they cannot coach or train outdoors. The answer, they erect “domes”, inflatable structures over pitches, so the players can train in relatively-warm, dry conditions – so, they turn-up to train.

Coaches, even at Iain's Under-10 to Under-12 age groups are paid. So, they have to earn the right to coach, and are also expected to keep up-to-date with coaching trends and keep studying and improving their knowledge base.

There is also the North American ethos of respect for the coach. Iain isn't Iain King in Toronto, he is Coach King. They revere coaches on the other side of the Atlantic, far-more than we seem to here.

To give you an extreme example, over here, Bobby Clark is “former Aberdeen and Scotland goalkeeper Bobby Clark.” In the USA, where he has lived most of the latter half of his life, he is: “Coach Clark, legendary Head Coach of the Fighting Irish.”

The “Fighting Irish” are Notre Dame University, before coaching there, he also coached at Stanford University in California.

Now, maybe if our rugby clubs treated their coaches at grass-roots, age-group level as valued members of the team, as people who got paid for the work they did – and, provided these coaches earned their pay, they would earn respect, and help strengthen the grass roots.

It's all very well having volunteers, and, while there is merit in: “one volunteer is worth ten pressed men,” there is also the view: “A willing worker is worthy of his hire.”

In Toronto, Kingie is involved in teaching the youngsters. Hopefully, many will go on and feature in the top Toronto adult team, but, for those who don't make it – the club offers recreational leagues at all levels, to keep the players involved and playing.

Maybe if Scottish rugby clubs put more effort into that; accepting, we might only get a couple of players from each year group good enough to play first XV rugby, but, worked harder at making those who don't have that amount of talent and drive want to stay involved in social rugby – the game might be healthier.

Then, for the guys like Scott Campbell, who never made the cut when they were fit, there is always Walking Rugby to keep them interested and involved – and fit, in their maturer years. I am delighted to see Hawick pioneering Walkirng Rugby in Scotland.

In between, there is Touch Rugby – we can surely work harder in the clubs, to keep more people playing. It can be done.