Davies warms to community spirit glowing in Spain

It has a been a sad affair all round, a sobering confirmation that the majority of soccer aficionados throughout North Lanarkshire are far more familiar with the acronym FTP than MFC. Yet, while the Fir Parkers keep struggling with their fiscal problems, one former employee is surely entitled to believe that his warnings from three or four years ago have been hammered home with a vengeance.

Typically, mind you, Billy Davies, that little coiled spring of multiple plots and plans, has no desire to gloat on the peremptory demise of the team that he managed until last year. Instead, and even though admitting that he was given the job prematurely - "I was just 34, and very inexperienced in knowing how to deal with directors and budgets, yet with the clock ticking down on my playing days, what else could I do but accept the offer?" - Davies has subsequently beavered away with his usual intensity at carving out a new footballing niche.

This mission has thus far guided him to the United States, where he visited Colorado Rapids’ new 62,000 all-seater Invesco Stadium: he has also been scouting for Tottenham Hotspur, at the behest of John Gorman, while helping to coach Scotland’s under-17 side; and he has further spent time at Manchester United, as part of his efforts to earn a UEFA Pro-Licence, researching the club’s set-up, training schedules and cramming information into his bonce like the studious Horace Broon.

However, most instructively, Davies, a tireless advocate of the benefits of community-based soccer, has witnessed at first hand the blindingly efficient infrastructure behind the starry names, which have combined to yield Real Madrid so much success, both in La Liga and on the European stage.

Indeed, during his spell with Spain’s grand panjandrums in January, Davies studied the club from top to bottom, and harbours no doubt that their name will be engraved on the trophy once again after Wednesday night’s Champions League final clash with Bayer Leverkusen at Hampden Park.

"Obviously, when you have an organisation which is capable of attracting players of the calibre of Raul, Roberto Carlos, Zinedine Zidane, Luis Figo, Steve McManaman, Morientes and Makelele, then there will never be any shortage of fans prepared to flock to the Bernebau Stadium," said Davies. "But what impressed me, in particular, about Madrid was their minuscule attention to detail at every level, from the A and B teams right down to the under-9 and under-10 squads, who were all kitted out smartly, taught the virtues of a healthy lifestyle, and coached to the highest professional standards, even at such an early age.

"It’s something we don’t really see in Scotland, where too many newspaper headlines tend to focus on drink-and-drug-related street crime, and where the notion of creating youth academies has taken far longer to move on from theory to practice than it should have done. But it’s no coincidence that Real Madrid have been espousing that concept for the last 20 years, and are reaping the dividends of their foresight."

By comparison, Rangers and Celtic have proved dreadfully sluggish in progressing beyond the facile policy of spend, spend, spend, invariably on overpaid foreign recruits, and have been forced only recently by monetary constraints to divert their attention from going with the Flo towards nurturing their own seedbed of talent. Yet the process remains in its infancy, and one wonders whether the sport here has not strayed so drastically away from its origins that the battle to drag children away from their Playstations and computer games is not already lost.

"Don’t misunderstand me, I am not pretending that Scotland will start producing a conveyor belt of Zidanes overnight. Somebody with that man’s gifts is to be treasured, and these individuals don’t grace any sport very often, so we shouldn’t labour under the delusion that Rangers and Celtic will start living with the likes of Real Madrid in the next couple of years," said Davies.

"But the fact is that Real have a system which taps into their whole community, and where everyone is made to feel important, day in, day out, not merely for the duration of 90 minutes every week. There’s an important message there for Scotland, because too many of our own people enjoy football without contributing to its development.

"They love the limelight at 3 on Saturday, but the rest of the job is a bind. Now, I may not have been the greatest player who pulled on a Rangers jersey, but at least I knew I was part of a bigger picture than some of those around me."

On the Champions League front, Davies anticipates Zidane and Figo igniting their Scottish audience, much as Di Stefano and Puskas galvanised the Hampden hordes in 1960. But as to the more significant question of our national game’s future, he is less prepared to indulge in confident forecasts.

"I’ve spoken to a lot of the Motherwell guys and they are apprehensive, as you might expect," he said. "Every day they pick up their paper, it’s a different problem, another row or club in crisis, and it is hard when you are a young boy to cope with that uncertainty."

Davies speaks from experience, but at least he possesses the intelligence and drive to transcend any slough of despondency. Whether the same applies to his old Fir Park colleagues is another matter entirely.