Former Scotland star Murdo MacLeod returned to his first club Dumbarton last week to back the Second Division side’s Platinum Draw that supports their growing youth policy and as well as making a fan £1,000 richer, MacLeod encouraged SPL Managers to get scouting in Scotland’s IRN-BRU SFL Championship for players.
The former midfielder started off at The Sons as a 14-year-old and played for them nearly 100 times before earning a move to Celtic and he was honoured to be asked back to make the draw for the first winner in the Sons Platinum Draw.
The 20 times capped Scotland midfielder said: “I had the chance to join other clubs when I was young but I thought I would get more of a chance at Dumbarton and that is how things turned out. Going back many years, I started training here on Monday and Thursday nights and it was really good as I trained with the first team.
“There were some great characters here with the likes of John Cushley, Dennis Ruddy, Lawrie Williams and the McAdam brothers. Dumbarton had a wonderful squad at that time and I would come down from my home in Milngavie with big Donald McNeill.
"My brother Alastair was here as well and there were also a good number of young players kicking about as well.”
The young players The Sons produced at much the same time as MacLeod included Ian Wallace and Graeme Sharp, the latter being the club's record transfer fee received when he joined Everton for £120,000.
Both these strikers went on to score in the top flight in England as well as in the Dark Blue of Scotland and Dumbarton had a conveyor belt of talent at that time with goalkeeper Tom Carson going on to star for Dundee, Graeme Sinclair joining Celtic, Tom McAdam moving to Dundee United and his brother Colin joining Motherwell, before the siblings played for one half each of the Old Firm.
Despite the strength in depth at the club at that time, MacLeod made his presence felt as he said: “I played in their first team as a kid and by the time I was 20, I had reasonable experience and both Aston Villa and Celtic wanted me. I went down to Birmingham for a couple of days but the Dumbarton Manager, Alex Wright, knocked back a bid from them for me.
“A couple of months later, I went to Celtic after their offer of £100,000 was accepted which was fantastic. I was ready for their first team and I made my debut on the Saturday against Motherwell and in my second game, I played against Rangers at Hampden. It was a bit of a change for me but there was no changeover time or anything like that.”
Playing in white, gold and black certainly left a mark with the midfielder with the cannonball shot as he said: “People often talk to me about Celtic, Borussia Dortmund or Scotland but as a teenager, running about Boghead was everything to me and it still means a lot.
“At that time of my career, playing for Dumbarton was the biggest thing in my life. I was full-time on the groundstaff at the club aged 16 and working with Dick Jackson. It was our job to have everything ready for a game on a Saturday.”
MacLeod added: “We would train behind the goals and do laps of the pitch to keep fit and I would work with Jimmy Brown and Alastair. It was a great experience.”
Dumbarton continued to unearth more talent with Morton Manager Allan Moore and team-mate Stuart MacIver almost winning a dream move to French football before having long careers in the Scottish game that began at Boghead with Steve McCahill also making the switch to Celtic just more than a decade after MacLeod.
With the game short of money at all levels, MacLeod reckons that full-time clubs should again be investing in talent reared by SFL clubs such as Dumbarton as he explained: “Bigger clubs should be looking more and more across the First, Second and Third Divisions. Finances are dictating that method of recruitment as opposed to paying transfer fees for players coming from abroad for example.
“It is good to bring through your own players but there is other great talent about in the SFL and they tend to be more experienced than SPL youngsters. The players playing in the first team of a SFL side have experience of playing for points and that makes a huge difference to their development.”
MacLeod added: “Young players at clubs at a higher level are being held back as there is no reserve league. It sounds good to say they are travelling to Manchester or Newcastle to play a friendly but that is basically just a training exercise. Playing for points makes you a winner in games and for a lot of players, that does not happen until Under-19 level. Coaches and scouts should be going out and seeing players who are doing that at an earlier age in the three divisions of the SFL.
“I am a firm believer that if you play in competitive games in your teenage years, you have a chance of making it big.”
MacLeod left Celtic after nine seasons at the club to move to Germany where he played for three seasons before returning home to join Hibernian as Player/Assistant Manager to Alex Miller in 1990. That summer saw MacLeod play for Scotland in the World Cup Finals in Italy, ironically 12 years after he had represented the Scottish League as a Dumbarton player when the SFL’s representative side played out a 1–1 draw against the Italian League in Verona.
That spell at Hibs saw MacLeod’s silverware collection, which already had entries from both Celtic and Borrusia Dortmund, added to as the Edinburgh side defeated Dunfermline Athletic 2-0 in the 1991/92 League Cup Final.
MacLeod came back to The Sons in a playing and coaching capacity in 1993 and guided them to promotion from the Second Division in season 1994/95 before becoming Manager at Partick Thistle.
With financial problems dominating front and back pages recently, the 53-year-old admitted that they are nothing new but look more severe this time around.
“When I went to Hibs, I caught the tail end of the issues that they were facing,” said MacLeod before adding, “However, Sir Tom Farmer agreed to back them and they were soon bouncing back up the way.”
After leaving Thistle, MacLeod helped guide Celtic to the SPL title as Wim Jansen’s Assistant Manager in season 1997/98 with that success ending a difficult financial chapter at the Parkhead club although what their rivals Rangers face just now looks to be a lot worse.
“Celtic were close to where Rangers are now,” said MacLeod before adding, “But Fergus McCann came in during troubled times and ensured that they did not enter Administration in the manner Rangers have.
“Winning the League with Wim in 1997/98 brought that period to an end at Celtic. Tommy Burns had built a fantastic footballing team and we took that on in the rebuilt stadium. Rangers were at nine in a row in terms of League titles and we stopped ten, which was really important to the history of Celtic.”
Jansen and MacLeod left Celtic after that one season and the Glasgow club have continued to grow with MacLeod saying: “Martin O’Neill lifted things even further and there has been some fantastic players at Celtic since then. They have had some special times with Trebles and a European Final so clubs can bounce back.”
The Sons Platinum Club that MacLeod was keen to support will see up to 250 fans pay a stake of £5 per week, to have a 1 in 250 chance of winning a 1st Prize of £1,000, a 2nd Prize of £500 and a 3rd Prize of £250.
The club’s Chief Executive, Gilbert Lawrie, said: “We want to get back to the days when players like Murdo were brought into the game by clubs like Dumbarton. Our youth policy is extremely important to us as I am sure that is the same for a number of clubs across the SFL.
“In the last couple of seasons, we have managed to bring some players all the way through the youth system and into the first team and in order to keep doing that, we need to make much more of an investment. That is where the Platinum Club helps.”
Lawrie added: “It bridges the gap between the costs involved in the operation and the grant that we get from The Scottish Football Association to help with youth football. We presently have three teams but we are moving to four teams next season under the new Club Academy Scotland programme at ages 13, 14 and 15 and a combined team at Under-17 age level.”
The youth set-up at The Sons is growing by positive reputation as well as Lawrie explained: “Players are now coming to us from local clubs which is a change as originally, they came from further afield. We now have a great relationship with the clubs in the Dumbarton District Development League and clubs are now putting players to us which is a huge improvement from the days where we were considered predators.
“Local clubs are now proud to put players to our development programme.”
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