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David Longwell Leaving The Club


Drew

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I think he's moving to another post within SFA

His youngest is in the Youth development down at Ralston

He has a good job with the SFA,I'd be surprised if he left it. Edited by HSS
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Alex Neil was Hamiltons equivalent of David Longwell until he took over as manager. He was replaced in the youth role by Canning who also replaced him as first team coach.

I'm not arguing with you over the value of Longwell. He's a very decent coach and he'll do very well in the US. The only criticism I'd have of Longwell would be in recruitment and in the structure St Mirren tied themselves into. They could have done something far more expansive and self financing but instead bought into the various pro youth structures instead. Whether that was ever Longwells own decision or not is something I can only speculate on.

Alex Neil was never head of youth at Hamilton. He coached the 17s then 20s before taking over 1st team. Head of youth at Hamilton was Frank McAvoy. He moved down to Norwich with Alex Neil.
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Gordon forgot his name has done really well for himself. Met him in the Fort Broughty Ferry a good few years ago moving up to United has paid off. Funnily enough im staying in the Fort this Friday before going to the Raith game would nice to see Gordon again. Has he tipped Saints off about any potential young ones , tut tut Gordon thought you were a Saints man ! !

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At the very least there is continuity in this appointment as Alan has been working under David for some time.

Good luck Alan. As you suggest you have big boots to fill. (Black ones only!)

I don't know anything about him but it makes sense to promote from within for this role. Hopefully there will be some innovation coming out of Ralston as to how the club approach scouting as that seems to be an area where the club fails but we'll wait and see.

Edited by Stuart Dickson
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I don't know anything about him but it makes sense to promote from within for this role. Hopefully there will be some innovation coming out of Ralston as to how the club approach scouting as that seems to be an area where the club fails but we'll wait and see.

Well he's a former pro so that's all the problems solved going by some of the previous comments from folk on here whistling.gif

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Well he's a former pro so that's all the problems solved going by some of the previous comments from folk on here whistling.gif

It was never one of my complaints but I can understand why it might make a difference to a parent who's son is a prospective signing. It doesn't take much imagination to figure out that if your kid is being courted by a couple of clubs you're going to be more impressed by the famous ex footballer rather than a complete unknown. I saw first hand locally how excited parents got when their kids were getting a chance to train for Willie Pettigrew or Chris McCart or for Scott Leitch. More often than not the kids didn't have a clue who these people were but the parents were clearly excited. Telling their pals and family that their little boy is being coached by David Longwell probably wouldn't have had quite the same effect.

There's loads of little details that add up. I had a kind of mixed view of Longwell. I thought he was a good coach and that he talked a good game. He was clearly passionate about the sport and about how he felt it should be played. But on the more negative side was the hard fact that many of the players coming through what is a very expensive youth system simply weren't good enough. Players like Reilly and Scullion were often talked up and came to nothing and looking on from a very long distance it looked to me like Longwell had a preference for very lightweight players who often flattered to deceive. And I also got the impression that the club were casting a very small net into a really small pond and still not getting the biggest fish. Hopefully McManus has the common sense to address some of that. Certainly the club need to do more to tap into the resources around Renfrewshire far better than it currently does.

To quote a top class athletics coach the way to find a top class athlete is to start off with 700 kids cause if you start off with 10 that you think show promise you'll quickly find that 5 don't develop, 2 get bored and leave the sport, 1 starts drinking heavily, 1 gets injured and the last one that you now have all your money on is getting tapped up by another club that has more financial resources thanks to it's bigger membership.

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Know Allan very well as an old school mate and next door neighbour when we lived in the same block of flats in Renfrew. He wasn't a bad lad for a bluenose but I won't hold that against him tongue.png

Was a bad tempered wee bassa when things went against him on the pitch during our school days and didn't tolerate losing. Has played for the likes of Jim Jefferies and will have good contacts in the game which will no doubt help.

Welcome aboard Micky. Always knew you'd end up here someday!

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Well he's a former pro so that's all the problems solved going by some of the previous comments from folk on here whistling.gif

Indeed. Before you know it, he might start listening to advice from former pros and employing former pros as coaches. He may even set up a scouting network. We can't have that.

Jings, we'll be having former pros turning up before we know it saying that he can't stand "fannying about at the back". But, hey, what would he know about it...

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