A familiar rant from Irishman Colm Kavanagh...
The Emerald Isle
Dunne: Produced in Eire
Hello, Hello.......... Only Thirty Minutes Flight From Liverpool — And The Pints Are Great!!
Back in 1999, I read a quote from one of the canniest men in Irish soccer – his name, Brian Kerr:
“While people and indeed communities seem to celebrate the fact that our young players travel to England, it should be remembered that very few players actually make it. I don’t believe that it is a cause for celebration. In most cases I think that it should be a cause for a certain amount of regret because there are a lot of cases where the players aren’t good enough, the clubs don’t pay them enough attention and I think there is a challenge there for the clubs in Ireland to offer them an alternative to going to England.”
Wise words indeed from Kerr, now manager of the senior national side, and the man who led various Irish under-age sides to European Championship success at both U-16 and U-18 levels as well as a third-place finish in the U-20 World Cup a few seasons ago.
If a small country, on the western edge of Europe, can produce players capable of competing with and beating the best Europe has to offer, then it is only natural that the “big fish next door” will want a look at the menu, regardless of Kerr’s preference in seeing the young talent remaining at home. Such are the ways of football…
In a perfect world, we wouldn’t see as many Irish kids heading over, chasing the dream of Premiership glory and the pot of gold that waits at the end of that particular rainbow. Too many youngsters have been sent over in the past, ill-prepared, ill-advised, given contracts and capturing the headline, “the next (insert Best / Keane / Duff etc.)”!
As strange as it may sound to some who don’t live in Ireland, this is a country absolutely fascinated by domestic English football. You are more likely to hear a debate in your local pub about English football than Irish club football – very much the poor relation over here. Ask any kid with ambitions of making a career in the game and the vast majority will state a preference for a career in England.
It’s a ready-made market — no language barriers — bar “th’s” in the wrong place! I’ve been banging on for years now, increasingly frustrated with what appears, on the surface anyway, a gross negligence of the game at grass roots level here by our dearly beloved Everton FC. I’ve often wondered why we’ve appeared oblivious to the growing game here as other English clubs swarmed all over the game here trying to pick up talent for little outlay.
It’s nigh on impossible to pinpoint the actual moment when things began to sour (my perception!) between the game over here and Everton Football Club. I am open to correction from anyone at the Club who refutes what I write – the bottom line is that I want to see my football club “on active service” throughout this island, trying to unearth a nugget or two as others have successfully managed over the years.
I know it is repeating myself but there was once a time, in Ireland, when fans of English soccer would arguably look upon our own Everton as “their” team. The common consensus, I believe, with most in England is that Ireland is a country awash with Manchester United fans. Tis true... now. Our neighbours, Liverpool, also benefit from a loyal following but, their support is not what it once was – probably something to do with thirteen seasons (and counting!) without lifting the Premiership.
Fifty-odd years back, we had a pretty decent Irish influence in the first team at Everton, with players like Farrell, Eglington, Donovan, O’Neill and Meagan. If you could try to pick one incident where the support for Everton began to wane, it would have come with the terrible tragedy at Munich airport in 1958, which decimated Matt Busby’s Manchester United and the inclusion of Irish international Liam Whelan amongst the group who lost their lives that night.
The emergence of Belfast boy, Georgie Best, and the romance of Busby winning a European Cup for Manchester United so soon after Munich, followed by the dominance of Liverpool during the seventies, saw our support dwindle further still. Down to the hardcore, dedicated support? Possibly so… We did have a scout back in the seventies but, from what I’m told, he rarely ventured southwards from his Belfast stomping ground (say no more) – this during a period when Everton would travel over to play Linfield on an annual basis pre-season.
During the eighties, I’m again struggling to think of players who would’ve been sent over for a trial at Bellefield. Not until Joe Royle was appointed manager of the Club did we see someone acting on behalf of the Club in southern Ireland. This scout was responsible for sending over, amongst others, the likes of Richard Dunne. No matter what you may think of Dunne as a footballer, he commanded a transfer fee of £3M – which, in my opinion, justified the existence of a proper scouting network in Ireland.
Not every player sent over is going to be the “next Roy Keane” but, if you can make a multi-million pound profit on a player you picked up for nothing, then there’s a definite case for seeking others “at source”! Infinitely cheaper than continually paying over the odds for players like Alex Nyarko and Ibrahima Bakayoko (to name but two!) and then getting little, if that, in return.
Oh, I nearly forgot – this scout who sent Richard Dunne over to Everton is the same man who also sent over some young chap who has just commanded a transfer fee of £17M in recent weeks. Fellow Evertonians, how good does it feel today knowing that we once turned away a youthful Damien Duff? Ouch! I believe our ill-fated sponsorship of Home Farm back in the mid-nineties left a bad taste in the mouth within Everton Football Club – a bad taste and a few quid out of pocket. At the time, I believed it was a cracking initiative by the Club on a few fronts:
Sadly, and it transpired to be the truth, Everton were at pains to deny that the sponsorship was a takeover (of sorts). Instead of bringing the best players over to Bellefield for a closer look, we allowed our sponsorship of Home Farm Everton to nurture players who would then make other English clubs their home. Indeed, Ritchie Partridge remains on Liverpool’s books today. I stand to be corrected but this sorry episode appears to have left Everton Football Club feeling very bitter and unwilling to look over here for players – which is increasingly frustrating when you see practically every other Premiership club seeking talent under every stone!
It has been reported that we now have three scouts working throughout Ireland – both north and south. Frankly, I simply do not believe this to be true. I’ve asked people with connections to the game – be they FAI coaches or fellow Evertonians with a connection to schoolboy clubs – and to a man, not one of them has come across anyone saying they’re representing the interests of Everton Football Club. If we do have three scouts traversing the land, can I ask have they emerged yet from behind the front door of the Guinness brewery in Dublin?
I don’t read, even in the Irish papers, reports of would-be stars of tomorrow hopping on a plane and heading for stardom alongside Wayne Rooney in time to come. Football, at the grassroots, is very much a sport where everyone knows everyone else. You stand there, on the sideline and bark away at your charges. Over there, standing on the opposite touchline might be a scout, with another beside him (those bench coats are a giveaway!). Two more behind the goal to your left and one or two others having a quiet chat with the father of that kid on the left flank who is having an absolute stormer of a game! All very stereotypical but you get my drift.
You get to know who is who – and who is representing what club. I’m of the opinion that Everton’s three scouts, somewhere in Ireland, are so under cover that MI5 would be impressed! I’m not trying to claim that we produce the best players in the world with the greatest application to the game of Association Football but, over the years, I am witnessing a growing number of quality players heading over to England for an absolute pittance and then earning their employers millions in transfer fees when moving to other clubs.
Everton Football Club has done absolutely nothing over here in recent years as far as I am concerned. Times are pretty hard at Everton at the moment, despite our upbeat mood – to generalise, we ain’t got a pot to piss in.
In recent seasons, I’ve been baffled at our Club hitting the panic button and granting the likes of David Ginola a tasty weekly wage. Money down the drain in my opinion — which can never be justified when there’s a wealth of raw talent a mere half-hour flight away from Liverpool Airport… All it needs is a little dedication, some local expertise – and a keen eye for a good young talent. Or should that read an eye for a Keane talent?!
Colm Kavanagh 29 July 2003