Youth/Development Team Thread

Final score Celtic 6 Aberdeen 0
https://mobile.twitter.com/videocelts

 

https://videocelts.com/2017/05/blogs/younghoops/aitchison-grans-hat-trick-against-aberdeen/

 

WEDNESDAY’S 6-0 victory away at Aberdeen has secured the league title for Celtic’s Under-17s with three games to spare, and also ensured European football once again for the Hoops in the UEFA Youth League.

In the 23 games played so far, the young Celts have scored 117 goals, with the loss of eight, averaging more than five per game with the loss of an average only one goal in every three games.

The victorious Under-17 side have already lifted the Glasgow Cup with season with a 2-1 win over Rangers in the Firhill final (pictured above).

Celtic's Head of Youth, Chris McCart said: “I would like to congratulate all the young players who achieved this and special thanks to Michael O’Halloran and his staff of John McLaughlan, George McCluskey, Rab Thomson, Ryan Marshall, Danny Friel, Scott Breddy and Mark Maxwell.

“Special thanks also go to scout, Tommy O'Neill for his excellent reports and Academy Administrator, Allison More for her patience throughout the season. Well done everyone.”

 

Really hope Ralston,Johnston and Aitchieson burst through next season,think Ralston is ready,just needs a run in the side,like KT got.We really need to punt the deadwood in the squad so these guys can come through ie,Ciftci and GMS,would rather Johnston and Aichieson getting game time ahead of those 2.

 

Toulon tournament on now. Ralston impressing so far against Czech Republic, though Scotland is losing at this time. Just beat a defender for pace down to the opponents box. Nesbitt showing some flashes. Thomson (and rest of Scotland midfield) getting overrun by the Czechs.

On a side note, Zak Jules (Motherwell loanee from Reading) looks absolutely dire. Worst player for Scotland by far.

 

INTERMEDIATE Academy Manager Michael O’Halloran was thrilled with his young players after they sealed the U17 league title in sensational style to confirm the club’s participation in the UEFA Youth League next season.

The Bhoys effectively clinched the championship last week with a superb 6-0 thumping of Aberdeen, which saw them leapfrog the Dons at the top of the table.

Boasting a vastly superior goal difference, there was no prospect of the Hoops youngsters losing their grip on the silverware but they were determined to maintain their momentum until they crossed the finishing line.

And on Monday night, they put city rivals Rangers to the sword at Murray Park in a dominant 3-1 victory to ensure they finished clear on points at the league summit.

It also meant the young Celts had clinched a second successive double, having already lifted the Glasgow Cup last month following a comfortable win over Rangers at Firhill.

With one game remaining tonight (Wednesday) against Hamilton, the youths had scored 119 goals and only conceded 12 in the league, a statistic which underlines their dexterity in all areas of the pitch.

Speaking to the official Celtic website, O’Halloran said: “At a big club like ourselves, regardless of what age-group, from first-team down, you are expected to go and win games and you are usually expected to win them comfortably.

“But the standard of Scottish football is pretty high at youth level. All the clubs strive to do well in their youth structures and that reflects in how well our national U17s did in qualifying for the European Championship. It shows and explains how difficult our games are at U17s.

“While you will find some games more comfortable for one reason or another, it’s very competitive. The teams and the clubs are very organised and the coaches are very experienced and they do their job really well. so it makes it tough for us and that’s why it’s all the more satisfying that we won the league in the way we did.

“What we would say about this group is, when required in the big games, they have turned up and done really well. To travel up to Aberdeen, who were top of the league at that point, and win 6-0 shows the talent and the quality.

"It just wasn’t the scoreline, it was the manner in which we did it. The performance was outstanding as Aberdeen are an extremely good team, otherwise they wouldn’t be sitting at the top of the league and they had a couple of boys who had played for their first-team.

“It was an extremely challenging game and to take care of it in the way we did was terrific. You can name a number of games throughout the season which has led us to go and become champions again.

“Once we had won against Aberdeen, Hamilton dropped points that night against Hibernian, it meant points-wise, nobody could surpass us, while the goal difference was so vast, there would have to be a 25-goal swing per game.

“That was the gulf so we knew at that point we weren’t going to concede that number of goals, but we wanted to win it on points and Rangers were vying for top spot as well. If they had won the game on Monday night, they would have finished on the same number of points as us but we wanted it clearly on points.

“To go to our fiercest rivals and win in such an emphatic manner – the 3-1 scoreline doesn’t reflect how dominant we were in the game – was absolutely outstanding and it was a great feeling.”


Celtic’s youngsters can now look forward to another campaign in the UEFA Youth League, the most prestigious competition for young players in Europe and something the club have been involved in since the competition was set up four years ago.

“It’s really important for the fact it gives the boys an experience of playing top-class opposition,” said O’Halloran. “It’s a different type of challenge that they experience from being at home and hopefully it gives them that experience and development which will set them up for later on if they are required to play at first-team level.

“I know there is a big difference but it gives them a wee idea of what it’s like to travel abroad and play against these types of opposition.

“It’s also a reward for the efforts they have put in throughout the season in winning the league. It’s about their development, first and foremost, and playing in a style and manner that the club is accustomed to how the manager and ourselves want them to play.

“If they do the things right and what’s expected of them, combined with the talent they have, they will win games and hopefully that will lead them to winning the league which spurs them on to qualifying for European football.

“The majority of these players played last season as well so it’s a double double, which is extremely gratifying for a personal point of view. The players have worked hard over the last two seasons and they deserve that opportunity to go and play in Europe."

And O’Halloran wanted to highlight the contribution of his backroom staff, including head coach John McLaughlan, and all the other Academy players who have worked with the players.

“There is a backroom staff throughout the club, and it starts from the coaches and staff who worked with the players at the younger age-group right through to the next level up to Tommy McIntyre and his staff as well," he said.

“I have had a lot of support staff from sports science to medical - Danny Friel, Scott Breddy and Mark Maxwell, and now we have David Crighton in as the physio helping us as well. There is Rab Thomson who works in kit, and John McLaughlan and George McCluskey.

“We have a big staff but winning the Glasgow Cup and the league is for the whole Academy and the club. Without the infrastructure we have, I’m sure we wouldn’t be as successful.

"Our main support comes from Chris McCart, our Head of Youth, who has supported us in every way we can. The manager is also very knowledgeable of what is going in our younger age-groups, and the support and encouragement he and his staff have given us has been absolutely brilliant.”

 

ScottishFootballNews @Scotfootball17


Former Dundee manager Paul Hartley expected to take charge of Celtic development squad next season.

https://mobile.twitter.com/Scotfootball17/status/870080786988490753

 

http://www.htafc.com/news/article/2...moss-head-of-football-operations-3727572.aspx

 

The SPFL have officially opened the door to colt teams entering the league - but they won’t be allowed to rise any higher than League One.

The formal proposal was circulated to all 42 senior clubs on Friday, inviting all SPFL clubs to submit an expression of interest in applying.

MailSport first revealed the move back in December as Celtic and Rangers drove the idea forward as part of the Project Brave revamp spearheaded by performance director Malky Mackay.

The offering has been refined since, and despite pressure on League Two clubs, it’s now understood any club entering a team would be expected to start at the bottom of the pyramid in either the Highland League or Lowland League and work their way up.

MailSport still believes, though, that the cost of running the full-blown second match-day operation demanded will be prohibitive for all but Celtic and Rangers to take part, although it is understood both Aberdeen and Hibs are giving heavy consideration to the idea as a replacement for any reserve team plan.

We have a copy of the proposal and the plans outlined are:

* Any new team will start in the Highland or Lowland League, although they leave themselves wriggle room here with the use of the word ‘ordinarily’.

* Colt teams will be allowed promotion - and relegation - within the Pyramid to a glass ceiling of League One.

* The teams will be for under-21 players, although the proposal could yet be changed to allow two over-age players.

* They would have to register a ground for the duration of the season and it would have to meet minimum League Two ‘bronze’ standards, including floodlighting. We revealed in December Celtic had already approached Morton for use of Cappielow.

* Staffing is a key requirement and the biggest obstacle for most clubs. Teams have to prove they have the resources to run on a day-to-day basis and also meet SFA standard entry level requirements to run a match day operation.

* Teams will NOT be allowed to play in either the Scottish Cup or Betfred Cup. They will, however, continue to be part of the IRN-BRU Cup.

* The current development league is still expected to be replaced by a Reserve League, as outlined in Project Brave.

The two Glasgow clubs had originally hoped to push the idea through in time for next season but it became clear at the turn of the year they would never reach approval by then.

Clubs have now been asked to submit their interest by June 30 to enter teams in the pyramid for the start of the 2018/19 season.

 

That's great news. Playing against senior players will be more beneficial to the academy players than playing against Motherwell's youth players.

 

For us it would be obviously good. For the league and scottish football as whole I don't know.

 

Not allowed to be promoted above the 1st division should be allowed to go to the championship

 

Should make it like Spain championship highest and if the prem team is relegated then the colt team goes down a division as well apart from that it's about time we did something like this, will help youth players development so much

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How will they work it if they win the League 1 championship.
What will happen to the |Championship team that should be relegated. Will that happen.
If yes will the 2nd or 3rd place league 1 team take their place.

 

Nenagh AFC are proud to announce the signing of Barry Coffey with Glasgow Celtic FC. Barry who has just turned 16 is pictured here signing his professional contract in Glasgow today. Barry will shortly move to Scotland to begin his professional career. All at Nenagh AFC are incredibly proud of Barry's move and wish him all the best. Special mention to all of managers and coaches who have guided and developed Barry over the years with the blues.
http://www.tipperarystar.ie/news/sp...ar-barry-coffey-signs-for-glasgow-celtic.html

 

7.30 am on a Monday morning and, just as Jinky Johnstone might have been doing 60 years earlier, Karamoko Dembele is kicking a ball around with his pals behind their school, but there the comparison ends.
There are no jerseys for goal-posts, torn trousers, scuffed shoes or irate teachers in evidence at St Ninian’s High School in Kirkintilloch. Instead all involved are resplendent in Celtic FC kit, practising their skills on a state of the art artificial pitch under the scrutiny of some of the most knowledgeable youth coaches in the sport.
Reflecting vast cultural change since the Lisbon Lions won the European Cup with 11 players born within 30 miles of Parkhead, it is a less organic, much more scientific process that is now required to hone talent and it is working.
The emergence of Kieran Tierney may be the most outstanding example to date, but more telling still is the fact that the Glasgow Cup final, contested by the Celtic and Rangersunder-17 squads, was won this year by an entire team who attended the same school, some 9.5 miles from Celtic Park, while the Scottish Youth Cup, with a slightly older group from the two clubs, saw Celtic cruise to victory with 10 St Ninian’s former pupils among the dozen players involved.
Such triumphs are part of the reward for the work done over the past eight years under the stewardship of Paul McLaughlin, the school’s head teacher, but he is quick to re-direct the credit to where he believes it is due.
“We work very closely with Chris McCart (the head of Celtic’s youth academy), whose vision this was,” he said.
“He had looked around Europe, at places like Ajax, to see models of youth academies and he came to me and said: ‘I’ve got this vision. Would you be interested?’”
The question was by no means rhetorical, but as well as the advantageous proximity, just down the road from Celtic’s training ground, McCart had done his homework in terms of the environment he was looking for.
“We’re fairly close to Lennoxtown so geographically it was fairly easy for them, but he had asked around and knew other people in education and we were seen as a school who were positive about things,” said McLaughlin.
One of its then teachers, David Milne, had won the UK teacher of the year award in 2008, while McLaughlin himself had just been named 2009 head teacher of the year, one of several awards the school had accrued at the Scottish Education Awards.
Their willingness to embrace opportunities, which was also demonstrated when they had seized upon the chance to become East Dunbartonshire’s ‘Confucius Hub’, promoting Chinese language and culture, allied to the nature of McCart’s approach meant they could rapidly identify mutual benefits.
“I think that’s why Chris came at first and I was sold on it because of the emphasis that was put on education by Celtic. They did not come just asking to use our facilities. It was asking if they could work in partnership with us to develop football and education together,” McLaughlin explained.
McCart and McLaughlin consequently put together what amounted to a combined presentation to the local authority which was persuaded to enter into a formal agreement with Celtic and, indeed, has more recently allowed another of its schools, Boclair Academy, to form a similar partnership with Rangers.
There were, of course, bound to be complications when pupils were being drawn into the school from outwith its normal catchment area, but football provided the solution to the problem it had potentially created.
“Integration is difficult in a way because the vast majority of the time the Celtic boys are in classes, but at interval and lunch-time you tended to find that the Celtic boys would all hang about together because they don’t live in the area, so they’re not socialising outside school with the other kids and they didn’t go to the primary schools the other kids went to, so those are their friends,” McLaughlin admitted.
“I consequently felt it would be better if there was more interaction between the guys who came from Celtic and the others. It doesn’t cause us a problem, it was just something inherent I thought I would like to see.
“I worked with the PE department to identify kids who could cope with the level that these boys were being coached at, so each year we have a couple of boys in each of the squads that we put in, again with that discipline of getting up really early in the morning and working with the coaches, which is developing them as footballers and it’s helping break down any perceived barriers between Celtic and non-Celtic.”
The shining example of that is the development of Daniel Finlayson, another who appeared in that Glasgow Cup final, but up against his schoolmates.
“We were delighted that he played for Rangers. He’s great, a lovely boy and the first one I would go to the day after the game. Some people would say he was Rangers’ best player on the night so I went to him and made a point of that,” said McLaughlin.
“Nothing would make me happier than to have his Rangers strip up beside the Celtic ones and he knows that. He would appear to be very highly rated by Rangers and was taken in a few weeks ago to train with them.”
He noted that the understanding the school has of what is required to accommodate Celtic’s players without undermining their education, had worked for Rangers too.
“When they wanted more access to him we knew how to do that. We were used to taking kids out of classes and paying back that time,” McLaughlin pointed out.
Partick Thistle have also benefitted with the school managing to work around the request from Gerry Britton, their academy boss, that one of their youngsters, Mark Ward, be released on a Thursday. The football demands are meanwhile such that the key is how they are factored in.
“We reduce their curriculum, but none of it is career threatening when we do that. In fourth year every pupil does seven subjects. Those involved with Celtic and Mark Ward, for example, who is currently in fourth year, does six subjects but it still gives them plenty choice,” McLaughlin explained.
“They carefully choose what subject, but we don’t let them drop English or Maths for example. We recognise the demands that are on them and it can be too much. We’re realistic about what can be achieved academically. I don’t think any of them suffer, whereas I think they would if they were trying to do everything every other pupil was doing and for Celtic for example to be spending nine sessions a week coaching.”
While there was something of a stir when the first influx arrived and the speculation around young Dembele’s future when he hit the headlines as Scotland and England started vying for his services last season, these youngsters who are prospectively being groomed for stardom are, then, encouraged to fit into the school, but McLaughlin reckons their presence is also good for their peers.
“It’s that thing about role models,” he said.
“What you’ve got are kids who are totally focussed on something that they’re really interested in and they’ve had to adjust their lifestyle as teenagers to be up really early in the morning, to get to their bed early, to eat properly, to do all of those things and at the same time keep focused on their education, so that is a role model for other kids who will be involved in other things.
“Kids have lots of different things they’re interested in and all we’re trying to say is look at what these guys do… if you put the same dedication into what you’re doing then you’ll be a success in that as well.

 

Aidan McAdams away to the Huns. 3 year deal.

 

Kieron McGrath 3 year deal. First professional contract.

 

Really proud our under 13s won the European Cup. Again! producing and blooding our own is the way forward for this club.

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With a name like that, he wont last long.



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