It’s been over three years now since Derek Young returned to Pittodrie to work with the up and coming players in the Aberdeen Youth Academy. Working as the Under 16s coach, he is responsible for schooling the next crop of payers who we hope will be emulating Scott McKenna, Dean Campbell, Scott Wright and Connor McLennan by pushing for first team football in the course of the next few years.

In his role Derek works closely with fellow Academy coach Scott Anderson, who is also tasked with bridging the gap between U16s and the first team, and coaching the U18 side alongside Barry Robson. In recent seasons Scott has also worked alongside Paul Sheerin in the final phase of players development, coaching the U20 and reserve sides where many of the aforementioned players impressed sufficiently to get a shot in the first team.

Fresh from Ryan Duncan & Kieran Ngwenya becoming the latest Youth Academy products to make their debuts we caught up with Scott & Derek to hear about the work ongoing to develop the next generation.

But first just how has Derek taking to coaching after a long career playing the game?

“Playing is a lot easier I would say. When you’re a player you’re just concentrating on yourself, making sure that you are ready to play and have taken in what the manager has told you. When you’re a coach it’s about looking after 15/16 players, trying to make sure you’re doing everything right in training, especially at the younger age groups. Going into coach kids under 12s to 15s, I need to rewind back to what I was like at their age and remember what I knew by then! It took me a while to get my head round that, trying to think not everyone is full-time and not everybody is at the top level, they’re kids trying to make their way.

“When you’re playing, you get more enjoyment, it’s more directly personal I think. Coaching, you get your enjoyment when you get a win or you see kids kicking on and maybe playing in the level above. With Scott being around the Under 18s with Barry Robson, he already knows the boys in Under 16s who are doing well and a lot have had the chance this year to go on and do that.”

So how do you go about coaching younger players at U16 level differently from senior players? Scott explains, “For me it’s teaching the hard working, ethic, discipline side of things that I always try and get across as much as possible just making sure that the players are giving themselves the best opportunity and making sure they do things the right way.

“Messages need to be simple, as coaches we can over complicate things but the more simple it is the easier it is for them to understand and make sure they know the reasoning for it. The main thing for us is just trying to help every player reach their level whether that’s Aberdeen First Team or Highland League or Juniors or wherever that may be, it’s just trying to implement good practice, make them better people and make them better players.”

Any player who crosses the line from player to coach suddenly gets a better understanding of just what his previous managers had to go through. Looking back on his career, Derek is very clear on that, “My best manager was Jimmy Calderwood, at Dunfermline and Aberdeen. The thing I liked about him and his staff – Jimmy Nicholl and Sandy Clark – were training sessions and drills were built around games coming up. There’s a lot of managers who it will come to the Friday and then they’ll maybe do something towards Saturday, but with Jimmy, it was all geared towards the game you were playing at the weekend. I liked that a lot, it set it out for the week.

“I feel he was the manager that got the best out of me, although he did play me in many positions around the park! I like to think that was maybe because I had a decent footballing brain and could play different positions and see us through a game. He saw that in me early at Dunfermline and he played on that. His man management filled you with confidence and made you think, “Yeah I play there,” then the next week he’d be asking me to do him a favour and fill a different position to cover for an injury. I was always playing. It might not have been in the position I wanted but I was still playing.

“I think the whole package was there, the two Jimmys got the best out of me. Their training throughout the week was exciting, at pace. The man management side is something that’s big for me but another thing I try to make sure of is explaining why we do something, why it’s good. A lot of coaches I had, they come in and do so many different drills and before you know it, your head is full of all sorts but no one actually explained why! A big thing for me and Scott at the Under 16s level is they need to be ready to go right into full-time football as soon as Scott, Barry and Simmy decide who goes forward.

“We need to have kids in there who know everything is 100 mph. You need to be making sure your passing is right, your movement is right, your positional stuff is right and we make sure if that in the Under 16s and 18s teams through the drills and coaching sessions, so that it is in their heads and they know it’s happening for a reason. Why are they making the movements, as a lot of the time on a football park you’ll make a lot of different movements to make space. You might not be getting the ball right now but in a few seconds time you might be on the ball because you’ve come out a hole for someone else to play the ball in, allowing you to spin away, so it’s trying to explain that to the kids.

The Youth Academy is also seeing the benefits of having Cormack Park as a dedicated base, something that Scott is enjoying having had personal experience of the previous training arrangements all around the city, “Cormack Park has been a lot better for all areas but particularly for the youth side of things. Obviously, the fact we’ve now got our own facility there to use, we can stay on a bit longer.

“Just having that extra space, more areas of the pitch available to actually work on rather than a third of the pitch at the Aberdeen Sports Village it’s made a massive difference for the Youth Academy. In terms of what we had before it was jumping from one pitch to another across Aberdeen in the professional side of things for training which required getting buses about, setting up goals etc, so just be able to get out there and have our own pitch is great.

“We were making use of the building a lot more before COVID struck as well and that allowed us to go and do more in terms of the analysis, working with different teams and looking at games coming up and the opposition.

“We were working on how we were going to play against them and that was also really good in terms of trying to develop that side of the game for them but unfortunately we’ve not had that since the pandemic came. It’s much better though, it allows us to do more and work closer with individuals and have the time to focus on that.”

From his own experience as a young player at Aberdeen prior to making his debut Derek knows the importance of grasping any opportunity that comes for a young player in terms of making that breakthrough into the first team.

“Being ready is so important because you never know when the call might come – we saw that with Ryan Duncan a couple of weeks back. He’s a kid that I saw two or three years ago in the Sports Village and the way he was going about things, I said to someone that night, “That boy has got the biggest chance out of everybody that I’ve seen.” Just with his ability, his attitude, he was listening to his coaches. I watched him the next few months, his left foot was unbelievable and it was good to see him kick on.

“We took him to Portugal last year. Ryan was playing with the 16s and the 15s had a tournament. You were allowed to take one player over the age to the tournament so we took him. He can stick the ball anywhere, he works his backside off, he can play anywhere on the pitch as he has got a footballing brain. He had a great tournament, we had a great tournament, and he’s come back from that and kicked on, especially since he’s come in after summer.

“Scott and Barry have got him flying and he got a chance because a few boys have missed out because of COVID. That’s what happens, people get injured, people get suspended, nowadays people get COVID, it opens doors for people and he’s got himself in the squad with two or three others, got a few minutes on the pitch, so it’s looking good.”

Having worked with hundreds of young players over the past few years, what separates those who do make the grade for the first team?

Scott explains, “We look at the technical ability, the attitude hunger, desire, awareness depending on the position they play, size, all these things come into the mix but the main thing for me is the hunger and the desire. They’re not going to get through unless they have the technical qualities or physical qualities that they need.

“One example of this is Scott McKenna. For me you could tell. I had just started at the Youth Academy and he was in the Under 17’s.

“You could just tell that he had a hunger in him that he was going to get there one way or another. It never actually worked out for him initially but he just had that attitude and mindset to say I’m not there yet but I’m potentially going to get there. That’s something that I’ve seen in certain players that have gone on and been able to play in the First Team that has set them in good stead and set them apart from the rest.”

Recently the club stated an aspiration to become the best developer of young talent in Scotland, an aspiration that Derek feels is close to reality, “This club is a great developer of young talent. You look at the amount of international players that the Club produces through all the different age levels. One of the Scotland teams not that long ago, there were eight players included in the team that had come through the Aberdeen youth system. They might all be playing in different places now, but their background was Aberdeen. There’s teams down in England who are always hovering, looking to see what kind of players Aberdeen’s producing. Ryan Fraser was in the team for a little bit, did great, and then he was away to Bournemouth.

“The young talent is there. It’s the club’s job to try and get them playing and make sure nobody else gets them before we get them signed full-time. There’s talent there. We like to think the coaching set up is good and progressing every single year. We all try and get better as coaches. Cormack Park can only make things better, as long as the boys don’t get ‘big time’ and think that because they’ve got a £12 million training ground that they are going to be the best player ever, because it doesn’t happen like that. If they’ve got the talent, that will look after itself. They need the will to work hard and listen.”