Hearts embrace the world of football

IT'S fair to assume that a chat with Hearts' youth academy director would always be fairly engrossing but, at a time when the club's player development policy is undergoing a complete transformation, John Murray's company is absolutely enthralling.

The era has not long past when Hearts stuck to rearing purely Scottish kids to play in a predominantly Scottish team. Now, in line with major European clubs like those on show at Stamford Bridge tonight, ambition dictates a much wider casting of the net, and Murray is at the forefront of it all.

Assisted by an extensive scouting network, Murray is relentlessly scouring Europe and even as far as Australia and Canada in search of teenage footballers who might just have the potential to play in the Hearts first team in five years' time.

Such is the nature of top-level youth football development, where the fashion now is to lure kids from afar who have barely entered adolescence but who may be able to offer something a little bit different further down the line in addition to a core of home-grown talent.

Hearing Murray's tales of the past and opinions on the future of youth football as a result of these changing ethics makes for conversation that would be a valuable commodity were it readily available.

"I think televisions and computers have made boys lazy and you find yourself having to actually entice them to train. None of them go out into the street and kick a ball any more, and the result is that the standard of player coming through at clubs is not what it was five or ten years ago," he said.

"In the warmer climates the boys spend more time developing their natural ability, so I think to get the best players you have to look all over Scotland and Britain, but to get a special player you have to look all over the world.

"You go to tournaments to see these players and if they're available and better than what you've got then you bring them over.

"It all moves from there, as long as the rest of the staff are happy with the player and he can improve the youth team with a view to progressing into the first team."

This wide-reaching approach brings Hearts in line with those clubs who operate at the cutting edge of continental competition. For example, Chelsea's youth academy contains midfielder Ricardo Fernandes from Portugal, Swiss left-back Jonas Elmer, South African right-back Dean Furman, and midfielder Hamzi Ismail from Somalia.

All are still in their teens, with Furman having arrived at Stamford Bridge at the tender age of nine and Ismail at 14. The same policies exist at the San Siro, the Bernabeu, the Velodrome, and now Tynecastle.

"We have boys here from Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland, Sweden, Iceland, Finland, Australia and recently the boy Kostadinov from Bulgaria," continues Murray. "Most Scottish clubs try to get Scottish players into their first team, and we are no different, but if you aren't doing too well you can't sit back and just leave it and hope to get in a couple of boys at 19 who might be half decent. You have to look deeper than that.

"At the moment, the dearth of talent in Scotland is between the ages of 13 and 17. We have a league going for under-11s and under-12s which is helping development, for some reason that changes when the boys get to 13 or 14 and you have to keep nurturing them. But football is a very hard game and some kids don't realise how hard it is.

"We bring young boys in three nights a week to Riccarton and give them training, conditioning and various other things to give them an insight on what they can expect at 17 or 18. It's a very demanding job. With kids aged 16 or under it can be difficult for the parents even getting their sons to training depending where they live, but football will always be a sport where people demand certain things.

"I know some clubs who have their first-team players in at 6am to swim 20 lengths."

Murray has to be probed to reveal the full potential of the Hearts development programme, as he does details on himself. "I like to get on and do my job and just stay out of the road," he says. His reluctance to have his picture taken to accompany this article is a case in point.

But behind the shyness of a Northern Irishman, who left his native land aged 16 to work for Brown Brothers at Rosebank Ironworks in Edinburgh, there is fierce pride at his work in football in the intervening period. "Twenty years ago I started doing some scouting for Cowdenbeath under Andy Rowland. From there I got to know Billy Brown, who took me to Falkirk and I was there for nine years with him and Jim Jefferies. Then they brought me to Hearts ten years ago, and I've been full-time with the club for three years now.

"Hearts are trying to develop as a major force in Scotland, we want to compete in Europe every year. To do that you need the best players in your first team. If we based our whole team around Scots, I don't think we could compete in Europe every year. For a young boy to break through here he has to be a top player, and I think that's a problem all over Britain because a lot of boys are playing because there is nobody else. But the guys here will get top quality coaching and top facilities thanks to the vision of Chris Robinson in helping us build our training ground.

"Come next year we will be one of the top clubs around for developing youngsters because we are investing in youth all the time."

The products of that investment so far are all Scottish, culminating in results like Sunday's 1-0 win over Rangers in the SFA Youth Cup quarter-final. Those recently initiated into the first team include Lee Wallace, Jamie Mole and Calum Elliot, who has scored four goals in his last five games despite being a month short of his 19th birthday.

Despite the infatuation of majority shareholder Vladimir Romanov with furnishing Hearts with experienced continental signings, like Mirsad Beslija, Takis Fyssas and Edgaras Jankauskas, there will always be a place for the natives.

"This group with Elliot, Wallace, Jason Thomson and Andrew Driver is amongst the best we've produced in my time," says Murray. "The previous group that had Darren Goldie and Bobby Clyde were also a fine team, although maybe not as good individually.

"We always thought from a young age that Calum Elliot was going to be a top player. All through the age levels he was the best one, year after year, in his group. Now he is proving that in the first team.

"Lee Wallace will develop through time. We have a young striker Gary Glen, who is only 16, and we have high hopes for him. Branimir Kostadinov is a different player to the type we have and very exciting to watch. We are hoping to tie him up soon. Matthew Park is a decent player and John Neill could break through soon, too."

Murray is never normally so effusive in his praise, so it is refreshing to receive such a rare behind-the-scenes insight into life at Riccarton. Commendably, he insists that mention is made of those who assist him; the men around the country who brave the public parks on freezing Tuesday nights in December to identify new talent for Hearts.

"Guys like Dougie Wales and Ian Grassick in Edinburgh, Jocky Watson and Tommy Forrest through in Glasgow, and Eamonn O'Hare working in Stirling. These are the scouts who are at the coal face for us and pick the players to bring in at ten or 11 years old.

"We then coach the boys and when they are 16 or so I will decide who gets a professional contract with Hearts. These guys are often uncredited and unknown to Hearts fans, like Roy Craig and Gordon Craig, who are technical coaches with us. These people coached the Calum Elliots before I got them and brought them into the club. It's about the whole scouting network, right through to Stevie Frail and John McGlynn dealing with the professionals at Riccarton."

The pros aren't doing badly, but with Murray preparing to supplement their capabilities with more exciting young talent, regardless of which corner of the globe he must visit to do so, the future at Tynecastle would appear rather promising in this era of multi-national youth squads.

"I won't go in the papers saying we'll do this or win that. You do your talking on the pitch," concludes Murray. Well, on the youth pitch, Hearts are screaming their heads off at present.

Taken from the Scotsman