Interview: Gordon Strachan

Published on Saturday 29 January 2011 13:27

MONEY is to blame for a lot of what's wrong with football just now, according to Gordon Strachan. Too much and it can ruin good players, not enough of it and it can threaten good projects. The latter is his primary concern at the moment.

Patron of the Spartans Community Football Academy, which is based in the area of north Edinburgh where he grew up, he is on his soapbox. He has been the famous figurehead for the past five years, before the foundations for the facility were even laid, but it's only now that so many programmes are up and running and he has had time to fully explore and appreciate them that he is attacking the role with gusto. "I was along there the other night and I was inspired and humbled by what they are doing. It doesn't get the publicity it deserves. But that's Scottish people for you, we are the most negative people in the whole world. I had a bash at coming back up here and living here for four years and I just found it strange that, for such a great people who over the years have come up with so many bright ideas, actors, writers, scientists, engineers, architects, produced good music, we still are so negative about everything. I met a couple of lads at Spartans the other night and I was sitting there feeling inspired and also ashamed when I see just how much they do. I feel like I should be flying up here every week."

It won't be every week but he will be a regular visitor. He will pop along to the Street Football in a Safe Place sessions and join in the kick-abouts and he will be more hands-on. But in the meantime he has assumed the role of missionary.

Like the wee flame-haired maestro in his heyday, dribbling nimbly up wings, now he is drooling his way in and out of a lengthy list of the academy's human success stories and hailing what is right with the set-up in the capital. His forehead only creases when the subject of finance comes up. A non-profit making operation, it relies on fund-raising, grants and goodwill and without any of them it is a struggle, albeit a worthwhile one. It's genuine enthusiasm and he confesses he was in similar mood at the previous night's Celtic against Hearts game at Parkhead.

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"Some of my mates were up from London and one of them was Rod Stewart and I was telling him all about the academy and he thinks it's fantastic and has promised that if there's anything he can do I only need to give him a shout. We recognise this isn't just about football. It is about football but it's about what it can do to help a community.It's about making kids there good people and after that we can worry about making them good players. Believe me, you need good people if you want to make good players."

That's not something new but he laughs when informed that the late Bobby Robson used to say he signed good people first, good players second. "Yeah but that was a lot easier 30 years ago."

It is an issue he is passionate about. "The root of so many of society's problems is the yob culture and we are the best in the world at being yobs. I'm afraid that this is me getting on my high horse now but we have yob television, yob newspapers, and funny enough whereas it was my mum and dad, school, police, church who used to set the standards, now it's tabloids and yob television who set the standards by which people live. But it's hypocritical. They have stories on the front page about people like Max Mosley minding his own business in a dungeon or something and they say that's bad but then you turn to the back of the same paper and there are adverts for dominatrixes and numbers to call them on. So they tell us what people can't do in their private life if they are a public figure but hey it's OK to do it over the phone, with numbers printed in their paper.

"Now there are broken families, there are no powers at school, and it's the same with the police. In the old days you would get a clip round the head and you feared authority figures. We scattered when we saw the police and at school I got the belt when I deserved it. I'm not saying we should go back to the draconian days but there has to come a point when we realise that we have to make kids better."

Which is what happens at Spartans, he says. There are programmes helping educate youngsters, teach them team-work, discipline and responsibility, helping to ensure they have a wholesome diet, and are safe and hygienic and they are all based around football. Gone are the days of playing kerbie in the streets but, he states, that doesn't mean the end of football in the communities.

"I see what is going on and it should be a model for others. There should be academies like this in communities all over the country. It would solve a lot of problems in society, not just football. The Henry McLeish report talks about community facilities and this is what he should be basing it on because they have it spot on. They are producing good members of society and, believe me, that really helps when it comes to making them good players. All the really good players I know, they all knew right from wrong. So many of them don't learn that at home nowadays. That's a problem, so we have to try to do it instead of parents.If we make decent players who can progress in the game, if we don't then at least we have helped make decent people."

There are elite independent soccer schools, while all the top clubs have their own academies but, says the former Celtic and Middlesbrough manager, there are different objectives.

"In these club academies, people are in a team but they're not really a group because they are all looking out for themselves, trying to make sure it's them that gets that contract so they can buy their Ferrari. Now parents push away to make sure their nine-year-old gets that first-team contract at 16. They are in their super duper boots and they all stand there hoping they are going to be superstars with billion dollar contracts.

"They come through with an attitude, believing they are better than everybody else and, while we might want to give them a slap round the head, what you find now is that they all have a 'syndrome' or some excuse for that bad attitude. Years ago a player would get a kick up the backside and told he was a big-headed, bad-tempered, disrespectful so and so but now it's some kind of syndrome to blame. People don't take responsibility for not knowing right from wrong and that's where community academies come into it."

The work at Spartans emphasises the role football can play in curing society. "I know from personal experience that it can help bring people into line. I had a young player down in England and I kept telling him he wouldn't become a better player until he became a better man and the message just didn't seem to be getting through but he used to go on about his money all the time. I knew one thing that would hurt him was not playing so I left him out the team for a month and he knocked on my door every Friday looking for a game. It was the only way I could get to him and he eventually got the message but it took him a long time.

"People talk about footballers and they get a bad press when not all of them deserve it. It's our fault for giving them a lot of money at a young age because, when people who don't know right from wrong suddenly have a lot of money, it's one helluva concoction," which is why Strachan loves case studies of wrong 'uns turned good at Spartans, of truculent outsiders blossoming into leaders.

"There was a study carried out and for 1 invested in the academy there was a 7.63 return on that. Money is tight these days and it is hard work raising the funds but it shows the benefit if the initial funding can be found. People think all academies are the same. They're not. I have seen nothing like this in Scotland or England. Spartans use the money the right way and they are making better people. That cuts policing costs, it helps educate, it helps with dental hygiene, diet, health and that will take some of the strain off the NHS as they get older.That's where money should be going."

With the SFA scouting for names for their shortlist, Strachan says he has ruled out any notion of him becoming the new performance director. "I think you need to be a very good politician for that role and I would either be a really great one or a horrendous one. At the moment I just want to help Spartans."

On this evidence, however, he would be irrepressible on the hustings.