Accies chairman Ronnie MacDonald urges fans to give youth a chance

Jul 28 2011 by Andrew McGilvray, Hamilton Advertiser

RONNIE MacDonald this week underlined that youth is the way forward for Hamilton Accies – and urged the boo-boys to get behind the players.

Four under-21 players – Grant Gillespie, David Hopkirk, Ali Crawford and Jordan Kirkpatrick – started in Saturday’s Ramsdens Cup first round win over Queen’s Park, while 16-year-old Stephen Hendrie climbed off the bench in the second half.

Chairman MacDonald believes that is an opportunity few other clubs would afford their youngsters, and has asked fans to be patient while they settle into the team.

He said: “The whole purpose of this club is to bring players through – that’s what we’ve always said and we’re excited about some of the boys that are now ready to come in and play within our system.

“We’ve got guys like Lee Kilday and Jordan Kirkpatrick, which is encouraging, but behind them we’ve got the likes of Stephen Hendrie and David Hopkirk coming through, so we’ve really got a crop of 10 or 12 who are showing fantastic promise.

“I want the fans to get involved with them, get behind them and really support them, because they’re going to make mistakes and we don’t need comments from idiots who don’t see what we’re trying to do.

“What we’re trying to do is pass the ball, create and play a proper football match – there are times when we’ll have to whack the ball up the park, but if we do that every time you might as well stop playing football, as far as I’m concerned.

“We’ve tried to involve the fans, it’s as cheap as anyone can make it to go to a football match, and we want them to feel part of it, to see the players develop.

“I’m sure they were happy to see James McCarthy, Brian Easton and James McArthur develop, and that’s what we’re trying to do again with these boys.

“So we want the fans to encourage these boys. They will have bad days when they make stupid mistakes but that’s how it is.

“I want them to remember that they’re our boys, playing in our shirt for our club, which I don’t think many other clubs have.”

However, MacDonald was eager to stress that relying on youth doesn’t mean Hamilton have abandoned their vision for success – far from it.

The ambitious chairman still has the same goals, but says that rearing the club’s own crop of players is the ultimate aim.

He said: “The First Division will be a hard league to win but we’ll try to do the best we can.

“We’ve got to make sure the club stays solvent in trying to do so – we could spend a lot of money but, unlike a lot of other clubs, we don’t want to go that way.

“We’re starting to build on a budget that keeps us, financially, on the proper course.

“We want to win the First Division, but we want to do that by playing the proper way.

“Relegation was a huge disappointment but it lets us get back to where we started in many ways, and start the circle again.

“I’m certainly not unhappy that the team is going to be filled with boys from the youth development – I think that’s fundamental to us.

“We’ve got the nucleus of a good, experienced squad, with players who we’ve had for a good long time which gives us the core of five or six players to build on.

“We’ve also got the Academy set-up at the Ravenscraig Regional Sports Facility.

“We were fortunate to get in there, we got help from sportscotland and that was great, and every one of our teams trains there.

“I think the place cost £30m and we’ve got use of it seven days a week, so we’re excited about that and want to keep building on it.

“We’ve got some fantastic young players even down in the under-13s and 14s, so as far as I’m concerned we couldn’t be happier with the way it’s going.

“But we’re only doing it so the fans can identify with their local talent.

“We’ve had a spell where we’ve brought people in from other countries to fill gaps and overall I don’t think it has worked – and it’s not really what I’m all about.

“We’re really back to our roots now, and whether that’s good enough we need to wait and see.

“I want the fans to support the kids – they’re getting chances at our club they would never get anywhere else.”