Kyle MacDonald says stars like David Turnbull and Allan Campbell helped him earn a move to Dunfermline Athletic, because the Motherwell under-20s side he was part of was so good.
If you didn’t train well, you didn’t play, it was that simple.
MacDonald, who has moved to the Pars from Airdrie, but will be loaned back out to the League One club for the rest of this season, was at Fir Park for 11 years.
Although Kyle didn’t make it into the first-team, he felt he wasn’t far away, and isn’t surprised to see David Turnbull excelling at Celtic and James Scott doing well down south.
The 21-year-old right-back said: “When I was at Motherwell it was a really good under-20s team – you had to train and play well to play the games, even for the reserves team, and that has been instilled in me since then.
“With the likes of David Turnbull, Allan Campbell and James Scott, I had to perform well during the week or else I wasn’t playing, and I’ve taken that with me throughout my career.”
While Kyle owes a lot to the coaches at Fir Park, he says the rest is down to simple hard graft.
“I was there for 11 years, so I can’t deny that I did a lot of my football development there,” he said.
“I had some really great coaches that helped improve my game, who helped support me, and I got messages saying well done on the move, that I deserve it.
“I do owe Motherwell a wee bit for the development they gave me, but I don’t want to take too much away from myself.
“I’m proud of myself for the way I’ve stuck at it, because I know boys that have been let go and just chucked it.
“I knew I wanted to be a footballer, I knew if I went to Airdrie and worked hard and did well that I could get a move like this.
“It’s happened, and I want to continue going on that same path.”
Kyle added: “The difference between reserve and first-team football is night and day and I didn’t realise that.
“When I was in reserve football I thought ‘this is the way to go’, but when I moved to League One it was so different and it means something.
“Reserve football is all about your performance and how you play individually, but League One is about the team and all about winning, so that really helped develop me.”
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