Start All Over Again

Craig Levein is willing to scrap the structure Dundee United have had for years to encourage the local playing talent to play for the local team. Football on the streets is not something that a lot of children do these days and that is where a lot of natural talent honed their basic skills. Under the tutelage of professional coaches this raw talent can blossom into skilful first team players. Levein does not think the well trod path is working anymore as the street football culture is no longer the norm. Levein, who doubles is also Director of Football at Tannadice, has started afresh on the youth set-up, appointing Brian Grant as Senior Academy Manager and Ian Cathro as Junior Academy Manager, with both reporting to Youth Director Stevie Campbell. Former Aberdeen midfielder Grant will be responsible for overseeing the development of players aged 15 up to professional youth level, while Dundonian Cathro will implement a new coaching and education system, named Take It & Play, for all age groups from under 11 years onwards. New coaches and scouts have been recruited to assist at the new and revamped coaching centres in Dundee and Stirling.

Levein said: "I decided I had to basically scrap the entire existing structure and start over to ensure the club would be better placed in terms of homegrown talent in future years. This isn't a criticism of what's gone before, it's simply a recognition that football - and society in general - has changed dramatically in the last quarter of a century and that we need to change with it. We need to ensure that young players coming through the system are equipped with all the tools and skills to become a good professional footballer in the modern era. Twenty five years ago there wasn't the same need to work on basic skills, as kids practised all the time. Coaching emphasis therefore was quite rightly on team shape, tactics, set plays and so on. Nowadays, however, kids have so many distractions that they are rarely seen practising with a ball in their spare time - if they have any - and we therefore need to compensate for this by teaching and encouraging basic skills only, particularly in the younger age groups. We need to educate them, rather than dictate to them and focus on replacing all the hours of practice lost to a generation of young footballers."

This new way forward for youth football will mean that the club will be employing more youth scouting and coaching staff and increasing the number of coaching sessions. This means that more money have to be spent. To make this work, a youth development fund has been established under the control of director John Bennett. Levein added: "It is important that the new set-up is adequately funded and equally important to ensure that these funds are spent wisely. I felt that this was best handled by establishing a specific body to raise and oversee the spending of the funding requested. John has agreed to chair this and will be joined, I hope, by ArabTRUST and other fund-raising organisations, together with other key individuals. This will help to ensure that all youth development fund raising is co-ordinated and specifically targeted, with all spending transparent. I am delighted that ArabTRUST has made an immediate donation of £8,000 towards new kit for the youth players and I'd like to thank all of its members for this very generous donation."