Dome is where the heart is

By IAIN KING, East Kilbride, October 20, 2017

SWIRLING rain teemed down, the howling wind roared across the pitch, the coach battled the wretched elements to forge the masterplan that would spark a Scottish Cup upset.

K Park last Thursday night and East Kilbride FC boss Billy Stark was taking the shaping session that would yield a superb 1-0 win over League Two Cowdenbeath 48 hours later.

It was another famous result in the brief seven-year history of my hometown club and no shock to me given the stature of the coach who crafted it.

Yet watching Starky at work that night brought me back to a key question I have been asked by so many of my coaching colleagues since I turned over a new Maple Leaf seven months ago and moved to forward-thinking North Toronto Nitros Soccer Club.

What do the Canadians do differently? What do they do better?

One of the key answers is summed up in one word. Facilities.

Last week I enjoyed another school night in my coaching career. I take every chance I am offered to watch the best prepare their teams. I look, I learn, I educate myself.

Yet as I shivered in the new K Park stand back in The Six in my adopted city the heated domes that will be our training homes this Fall and Winter were popping up all over Toronto.

In Canada October means Thanksgiving turkey and close-season for the youth players and coaches whose job it is to improve a developing soccer nation.

Over the next 20 weeks until the season ends on March 31 we will train and play our games INDOOR as the temperatures plummet after an at times searing summer.

Cranes come in at the artificial turf fields around this bustling city of 3.5million people and the domes are erected in time for the start of the new campaign on October 29.

My main home this winter will be Downsview where an indoor complex called The Hangar houses four purpose-built seven-a-side fields beside the full-size 11-a-side pitch which is encased by the dome.

HOME SWEET DOME...the Downsview Dome, one of North Toronto Nitros' winter homes

The Canadians don't angrily shake their fist at their climate and bemoan it, they have long since accepted it and adapted their sporting culture to it.

Project Brave in Scotland will see Academy football finally move to a March-November season next year. I am not exaggerating when I say that I have been advocating that switch along with a host of other voices in development football for TWO DECADES.

So while Performance Director Malky Mackay should be saluted for forcing through change think now how far we lag behind countries like Canada that we far too often sneer at in the vital area of facilities.

Even with Oriam, the superb new £33million national training centre, this winter will I am certain see Scotland's professional sides scrambling around to book half a pitch indoors at Toryglen when the Big Freeze bites.

The alarming absence of foresight from sporting bodies and the shameful lack of funding of facilities from local and central government in Scotland has been a national embarrassment.

Countries like Euro 2016 heroes Iceland - now looking forward to next summer's World Cup Finals in Russia - have reared a generation of technically gifted stars playing indoor throughout their savage winters.

Here I can only think of St Mirren who have had the nous to put a dome over the 3G surface next to their stadium to ensure kids can hone their technique without turning blue with cold in the process.

SNOW BOTHER...when the weather was biting last winter our Nitros' League One adult side trained in the dome at the magnificent Varsity Stadium, a fun place to go to work

Where Scotland's coaches and players have been let down by the powers-that-be is that training in that climate often dictates how you frame your session. Tempo, keep them moving, stay warm, little time to stop and make points, to educate.

Forget about genetically challenged as outgoing Scotland boss Gordon Strachan argued in the wake of that numbing 2-2 draw in Slovenia that will see us banished from major tournament Finals for 20 years.

The truth is, having now sampled another soccer culture, I feel Scottish players are too often technically deficient. Other nations are more comfortable on the ball than we are. Fact.

A big part of the blame for that lies in the lack of adequate facilities and the backward thinking that playing in all weathers "makes you a man" or "builds character". Do me a favour.

I am adapting to life in a sports-mad country where football - or soccer as I now have to call it - is not king.

Ice Hockey, basketball, baseball, the NFL. They all grab attention before the Beautiful Game in my new home city despite the league-winning success of Italian superstar Sebastian Giovinco and Toronto FC as they head for the MLS Cup play-offs.

Yet as I prepare to fly back to Canada on Monday for Part Two of the adventure some thoughts linger.

A generation of girls brought up learning to play soccer on the fields in the summer sun and the domes in the winter chill now sees Canada's women's side ranked fifth in the world. Not bad for a hockey nation.

True that story of glory has yet to be mirrored in the men's game where Octavio Zambrano's team are ranked 96th with the side Strachan left behind now 29th despite that World Cup qualification failure.

Any shrewd observer who watched Canada's showing in the recent Gold Cup, though, will recognise that at last the seeds of growth are there.

That image of Billy Stark trying to holler instructions through the teeth of a gale will live with me, for too long now Scottish football's lack of vision has seen it blown off course.