Why are jocks so shite these days?

[Guest Tuco Ramirez]

Yes, I know the English national team is performing rather poorly. I know the PREMIERSHIP is full of foreigners.

Yes, I know the best manager in the UK is a Scot and more or less as football managers.

 

But one glaring fact is that they no longer produce good footballers, and....well England does. Forget about our 10 times greater population, we outshine them proportionally by a distance.

 

How do I work this out? Well let us just look at Merseyside and Wirral in isolation. Liverpool and its environs possibly have a population roughly half the pop. of Scotland maybe less.

 

Yet in the last decade or so, it has produced players like Rooney, McManamen, Robbie Fowler and Michael Owen who was born in nearby Chester. All four were arguably world class, all certainly were good enough to ply their trade both at the highest level in England and probably if given opportunity at the highest levels in Europe. Owen and McManamen both played for Real Madrid. Fowler at his very best was probably superior to both and Rooney is probably better than the first three.

 

In this period Scotland hasn't produced a single player of the type of quality that would have seen them considered by Barcelona or Real Madrid. Yet the area of Liverpool has produced four! ... Certainly that I can think of.

 

From around England there are plenty of other examples of high quality players, such as Ferdinand, Terry, Beckham, Ashly Cole, Joe Cole, Woodgate, Lampard, Campbell, Scholes all of whom at their best would have drawn interest from Europe's very best clubs. But not a single jock.

 

Yet thirty years ago, Liverpool, Forest and Ipswich all built their successful European teams around Scots, even Villa had three in their final team against Bayern Munich. Ken McNaughton, Des Bremner and Allan Evans, none of whom themselves were even Scotland regulars. That apart, others such as Souness, Hansen, Dalgleish, Andy Gray, Martin Buchan and many more...

 

What has happened to the jocks and why can they no longer produce even a single top level player? It's baffling cos at one time perhead of pop they produced more great players than anywhere on earth I'd say if you go back far enough. It has to be a lifestyle thing I think, they drink more than anywhere else, die earlier, are generally fatter, maybe there's other reasons.

[kockhead 0]

Don't have a go at jocks when no geordies play for England silly twat

[Tooj 17]

You could say exactly the same about the North East. Look at what we produce now, compared to the past.

[Guest Tuco Ramirez]

You could say exactly the same about the North East. Look at what we produce now, compared to the past.

True enough but tyneside is what? 1m people, and we produced 5 of the best 7 English players of the late 80's and 90's. Scotland not one.

[Happy Face 29]

Tyneside produced 5 of the best 7 English players of the late 80's and 90's. Scotland not one.

 

They'd struggle to.

[Happy Face 29]

Kenny Dalglish wasn't a bad player btw.

[Guest Tuco Ramirez]

Kenny Dalglish wasn't a bad player btw.

Never, he made his debut in 1969 though.

[Guest alex]

Two of their best players have been two of our worst managers in recent years.

[sniffer 0]

I was talking to a teacher from Glasgow a few months ago and he said it went back a good few years to decisions made at the school level to not consider sports as a significant factor in grading teachers. At that time, a lot of the younger teaches said fuck that and didn't pick it up. He has been running the school team for years but doesn't get anything for doing it apart from the enjoyment but he's not sure there'll be anybody banging on his door to take over the team once he retires. Basically saying that a major factor in the decline, but not the only one, is in schools. And that has an impact all the way up the ladder.

[LeazesMag 0]

some say their decline started with the influx of foreign players, as they did this in bulk before we did in England.

 

Maybe that is right, maybe not.

 

It's a global game now though. Capping foreigners ? Different matter entirely. You would think that as Scotland is predominantly mostly working class etc more kids would be out playing football.

[LeazesMag 0]

I was talking to a teacher from Glasgow a few months ago and he said it went back a good few years to decisions made at the school level to not consider sports as a significant factor in grading teachers. At that time, a lot of the younger teaches said fuck that and didn't pick it up. He has been running the school team for years but doesn't get anything for doing it apart from the enjoyment but he's not sure there'll be anybody banging on his door to take over the team once he retires. Basically saying that a major factor in the decline, but not the only one, is in schools. And that has an impact all the way up the ladder.

 

good comment I've not heard before.

[Monkeys Fist 38737]

Irn Bru and Heroin.

Lethal

[Guest alex]

A deadly cocktail of drink and drugs.

[Tooj 17]

[toon_don 0]

I think a lot of the clubs ignored youth development for a while, instead trying to get crowds in buy making expensive foreign signings. Claudio Cannigia played for Dundee for God's sake. Now teams are having to bring players through their youth systems simply because there's no money around, and there are a few really talented players coming through in the SPL now.

[PaddockLad 14580]

I was talking to a teacher from Glasgow a few months ago and he said it went back a good few years to decisions made at the school level to not consider sports as a significant factor in grading teachers. At that time, a lot of the younger teaches said fuck that and didn't pick it up. He has been running the school team for years but doesn't get anything for doing it apart from the enjoyment but he's not sure there'll be anybody banging on his door to take over the team once he retires. Basically saying that a major factor in the decline, but not the only one, is in schools. And that has an impact all the way up the ladder.

 

good comment I've not heard before.

 

 

It is and it started happening in the mid 80s just as I left school on that side of the border.There was also a large scale teachers strike and part of their industrial action was a ban on members taing extra curricular activities including Saturday morning sport. I went to Kelso High School and we had 6 rugby teams on a Staurday morning without fail. My sister works at the school now and says they stuggle to turn out 3 most weeks. Since then the only truly international class football player Scotland have produced may be John Collins but I know that may well be a view not endorsed by the majority of posters on here

 

The other side of this coin is communities, and as mentioned earlier in the thread this affects the North East as much as it does Scotland. The ones that produced all the quality players (invariably industrial and working class; Scotlands central belt,the north east,Merseyside,East London etc) are all sad shadows of their former selves. The jobs went first,then the loss of self respect needed to dedicate yourself to sport when days are long and full of nothing. The corresponding benefit culture that sprang up to replace the jobs I imagine saps any will from potentially good players, and that is before you consider cheap and available drugs on lots of street corners. This is starting to affect the England team as we speak, look beyond the first 11 and you see one of the reasons why they failed so badly in the summer....Green and Upson first choice back up? if it is said that West Ham won the world cup in 66 you could say they went a large way to blowing it in for England in 2010.

 

These islands dont produce the players they once did full stop. And its down to society rather than foreign players/coaches/lack of coaching etc if you ask me.

[Dr Kenneth Noisewater 0]

Yes, I know the English national team is performing rather poorly. I know the PREMIERSHIP is full of foreigners.

Yes, I know the best manager in the UK is a Scot and more or less as football managers.

 

But one glaring fact is that they no longer produce good footballers, and....well England does. Forget about our 10 times greater population, we outshine them proportionally by a distance.

 

How do I work this out? Well let us just look at Merseyside and Wirral in isolation. Liverpool and its environs possibly have a population roughly half the pop. of Scotland maybe less.

 

Yet in the last decade or so, it has produced players like Rooney, McManamen, Robbie Fowler and Michael Owen who was born in nearby Chester. All four were arguably world class, all certainly were good enough to ply their trade both at the highest level in England and probably if given opportunity at the highest levels in Europe. Owen and McManamen both played for Real Madrid. Fowler at his very best was probably superior to both and Rooney is probably better than the first three.

 

In this period Scotland hasn't produced a single player of the type of quality that would have seen them considered by Barcelona or Real Madrid. Yet the area of Liverpool has produced four! ... Certainly that I can think of.

 

From around England there are plenty of other examples of high quality players, such as Ferdinand, Terry, Beckham, Ashly Cole, Joe Cole, Woodgate, Lampard, Campbell, Scholes all of whom at their best would have drawn interest from Europe's very best clubs. But not a single jock.

 

Yet thirty years ago, Liverpool, Forest and Ipswich all built their successful European teams around Scots, even Villa had three in their final team against Bayern Munich. Ken McNaughton, Des Bremner and Allan Evans, none of whom themselves were even Scotland regulars. That apart, others such as Souness, Hansen, Dalgleish, Andy Gray, Martin Buchan and many more...

 

What has happened to the jocks and why can they no longer produce even a single top level player? It's baffling cos at one time perhead of pop they produced more great players than anywhere on earth I'd say if you go back far enough. It has to be a lifestyle thing I think, they drink more than anywhere else, die earlier, are generally fatter, maybe there's other reasons.

Deep-fried mars bars.

[Dr Kenneth Noisewater 0]

Don't have a go at jocks when no geordies play for England silly twat

Carrick.

[Ferguson_6 0]

Bevy culture, players tend to start to give up around 16+ for the booze sadly

[parkinpants 0]

Darren fletcher, football genius

[Guest Tuco Ramirez]

Bevy culture, players tend to start to give up around 16+ for the booze sadly

I don't think it's that. Other than Newcastle and this area, throughout football history you'd be hard pressed to find a city what has produced more top players than Glasgow. Yet Glasgow's always been known as a tough drinking city with life expectancy 49 is it? Something like that, I think the explanation given by Paddock Lad may be nearest to truth plus kids lifestyles changing i.e games consoles.

[sniffer 0]