Looking for the Rooneys (or Will Buckleys) of the future

Colin McLaren, is a Newcastle United-supporting Geordie who lives in Oldham and works for Rochdale FC, but whose true sporting colours are making sure that budding footballers have a future on or off the pitch.

Millions of youngsters grow up dreaming of becoming the next Rooney or Ronaldo.

But for every one who has the skill, determination and luck to succeed, there are countless others who never make it.

And even those who manage to get on the books of a club’s football academy — or even get a professional contract — still face the prospect of finding themselves on the footballing scrapheap.

As training development officer at Rochdale FC’s Centre of Excellence, Colin McLaren is making sure that youngsters have the best opportunity of success on the pitch along with qualifications and a career to fall back on.

The centre aims to find the league two outfit’s first team players of the future and Mr McLaren, 61, explained: “We have eight teams who all basically aspire to be professional footballers. They have all been identified through the scouting system as potentially having the ability to do a scholarship.

“We play against other professional clubs. There are no league tables or cup ties, they are coaching games against other centres of excellence.”

Of those budding players aged nine and upwards, only 18 will be taken on at 16 as youth scholars to do a two-year modern apprenticeship in sporting excellence. Partly funded by League Football Education, which was set up by the Football League and the Professional Footballers’ Association, this covers the technical, tactical, psychological and sociological side of the game. Apprentices also complete an NVQ such as sport and recreation at Bury College and Mr McLaren said candidly: “If they follow the full programme they could end up with the equivalent of four A-levels which they then will have if they do not make it as a professional player, and the majority do not.

“If they don’t continue professionally, they need to get back into education or full-time employment. A lot of them will do their level 2 coaching badge and stay in football on a semi-pro basis, or become physiotherapists, dieticians, psychologists — sport-related business.”

Each year only a lucky four or five are offered professional contracts with Rochdale.

For those who succeed, the majority will never achieve the super-stardom and million pound salaries of the Premiership glamour boys and Mr McLaren added: “Sooner or later their career comes to an end and they need to find another form of employment.

“Before the centre of excellence system you signed schoolboy forms at 14 and when you left school you joined the club as a player. There was no education; it was football and you succeeded or not. In those days, players without qualifications often ended up in low-paid, low-skilled jobs.”

Mr McLaren is a Newcastle supporter born and bred and conceded his team was “not having the best time” at the moment.

He came to Manchester in 1973 to work at a Catholic secondary school, before moving to Kaskenmoor a year later where he taught for 25 years.

As a Manchester City councillor, he represented Moston for 11 years until 1990 and has been a Labour councillor for Chadderton Central since 2006.

He admitted that he was actually a better cricketer than footballer, getting involved with the beautiful game at Moston FC Juniors 1990.

“When I came off the council we moved house to Chadderton. My next door neighbour was already involved with Collyhurst and Moston as it was then, and he saw my 10-year-old son hitting a football in the back garden.

“He leaned over the fence and asked ‘would you like to come down for a trial?’. We went down and by the end of the trial I was team manager!”

He went on to become a founder member of Moston FC Juniors, which sent a team to the World Peace Cup in Japan in 2006, and remains its secretary/treasurer.

Then in 1995 he was recruited by Rochdale FC’s centre of excellence as a part-time coach, becoming child protection officer when he took early retirement in 1999.

A qualified UEFA B coach for both outfield players and goalkeepers, he coached centre of excellence players until last year and said proudly: “Two of the kids I worked with at under 9s have made it though and have been offered a scholarship this year.”

He added: “It’s the parents that might sometimes be more ambitious than their children. Some are quite realistic about their children, but some have an over-inflated image of their ability.

“It’s managing those aspirations. Like a school we have parents evenings at which we discuss the player’s progress,” said Mr McLaren diplomatically.

“One of the issues for players is they can’t continue to play junior football, although they can play school football. Sometimes they would rather play with their mates in junior football.

“Our argument is they have got more chance of success the longer they stay in the system.”

As for the lure of the premiership big guns, he added: “It is hard to succeed but we have always argued they have got a better chance here than they do at at Manchester United because of the sheer amount of players they have got in their system. Or if you look at Arsenal, their youth system is overloaded with foreign players.”