James McArthur and James McCarthy. There have been more, but these are the names synonymous with the Hamilton Academical academy, as their achievements in reaching the highest levels of the game not only provided the club with vital finance, but a reputation for youth development that stood up against any in the country.
Now, that proud history lies in tatters. The loss of Hamilton’s CAS (Club Academy Scotland) Elite status this week led to the folding of their remaining under 17s and under 19s teams, with Herald Sport understanding that one coach received a text midway through his first training session informing him of the news, and instructing him to send the boys home.
That followed on from the news last week that their academy teams from under 11s through to under 15s were to be ‘paused’ for the season, leaving Hamilton without a youth setup for the coming campaign and leaving many of their players in limbo.
It is just the latest blow to hit the beleaguered club, who incurred a 15-point penalty for breaches of SPFL rules last season around alleged player remuneration defaults and a failure to comply with club licensing requirements, resulting in their relegation to League One. They were also hit with a transfer embargo.
The loss of the academy though, seen by many as the jewel in Hamilton’s crown, has cut many involved with the club deeply, even if that proves to be a temporary measure, as the club board insists.
How was this once prodigious conveyor belt for young talent brought grinding to a halt?
The timeline
Last Thursday, a letter was sent to parents of young players with the Accies Academy by Director of Football Gerry Strain, in which he outlined that the club would be putting their Elite Academy programme from under 11s through to under 15s on hold for the season.
Herald Sport can reveal that in a meeting the week prior, Strain had explained to parents that training had been moved to Broadwood on weeknights at 4pm and 9pm, despite releasing the news that a training base had been secured in South Lanarkshire in a statement released on the club website in early June.
“Keeping our Academy in Hamilton has been an absolute priority,” Strain said in the statement.
"It’s not just about geography — it’s about identity, pride, and continuity. We are a club built on local roots, and being able to retain our Elite CAS status right here in our community means everything to us.”
Read more:
-
Anger and acrimony as Hamilton launch league campaign in Cumbernauld
-
Hamilton Accies pause Elite Academy programme in latest blow
Many parents expressed not only their distress at the late change of arrangements, but also their inability to get their children to Cumbernauld so soon after the closing of schools, despite the club contending that training would start at 4.30pm.
While initially pushing back against these objections, the club relented and made the decision to pause these teams for the coming campaign, terminating the registration of the players affected on the Scottish FA’s COMET system.
The under 17s and under 19s sides were said to be unaffected, and would continue to train out of Broadwood, but the failure to meet the requirements to retain their CAS Elite Academy status led to the abrupt pulling of those sides this week. Herald Sport understands the club have requested a meeting with the SFA to obtain clarity on the retention of players from this age group outside of the CAS programme.
For many who have been involved in the youth setup though, this outcome has long been in the post.
The coaches
Back in January, a former Hamilton academy coach raised alarm when he resigned from his position citing concerns such as repeated delays of payments to coaches, a lack of communication from the board and broken promises over kit and equipment that never arrived.
After he expressed those worries over the direction of the academy publicly, chairman Jock Brown wrote to parents assuring them that his statements were ‘inaccurate and plainly wrong’. The coach later received a cease and desist letter from the club after pursuing his grievances through the SFA and SPFL.
Despite that freeze in spending, Brown went on to offer assurances that this would be a ‘short-term issue’.
“I would like to assure you that the future of the Academy is secure and there is no risk to the continuation of our CAS Programme, or to your child’s participation,” Brown wrote.
“The Board of Directors would like to apologise for this short-term issue and I would trust you will feel reassured that all appropriate action is being taken to ensure the ongoing success of the Academy.”
However, Herald Sport has spoken to one former Hamilton academy coach about his experiences while working there, who alleged a starkly different picture.
“There was no [investment in] equipment,” he said.
“And the communication was terrible. You didn't know the schedule, when you were in, even the day before.
“Not one month would be paid on time. And when I say paid, that's for two nights and a game at the weekend. Two nights of training, three hours planning before it, setting up, clearing up after it, setting the goals, putting them away. All the games at the weekend, whether that's in Dundee, Aberdeen or whatever.
“We have to use our own car, our own mileage, our own petrol, our own finance to get there. And we are paid £350 a month. So, it's not even a wage for the day that you're having to do. They were not paying coaches on time.
"They were always looking for investment and we were never paid on time.”
So poor were the alleged conditions that the coaches were working under, that explanations from the club over missing equipment became something of a running joke between the staff.
While the coach says that there was widespread dissatisfaction among many of the staff, the main concern among the group was for the children, and the impact the uncertainty around their teams would be having on their mental health.
“You must understand the sort of effect it must have on them, because they're only kids at the end of the day,” the coach said.
“In the summer, some of the parents were like, ‘We’re getting out of here. It’s not going to last. I'm getting my son out now before the market is saturated with players now looking for an academy team.’
“There were quite a few boys who left the club or tried to, in May. Most of them managed to get away and get released and a lot of them have thankfully found new clubs.
“But as it got into June and more were trying to get away, they were refused, and told that anybody wanting to sign them would need to pay compensation.
“I know of parents who have sent formal letters to CAS and to Hamilton to say this is affecting the mental health of my child.
“You don’t have facilities confirmed, you can't tell us where they're going to be playing, you've got people coming in from different places every week, they're turning up for coaching and there's no coaches there on the park, which then becomes a safeguarding issue.
“The boys are free now, but if you go for a trial in August, you might well be going in to be compared to somebody who's came through a boys’ club. If there’s not much between them, they're going to pick the boys’ club boy, because there's not a financial burden on that wee boy's head.
“It’s just a terrible situation for these boys to have had to go through.”
The players
Clubs across Scotland have rallied around to offer facilities, trials and even contracts to the players affected by the demise of the Hamilton Academy, with local rivals Motherwell and the Motherwell Community Trust organising training nights to allow those now unattached a place to keep themselves ticking over.
Despite that show of support though, the last few months have undoubtedly taken its toll on the young players.
One parent that Herald Sport spoke to said: “Parents and coaches invested heart and hours into a dream; what they got was uncertainty and disengagement. The cost isn’t a season, it’s a generation of young athletes losing belief in opportunity.
“We, as parents, are deeply distressed by how this debacle has been handled. Repeated changes of staff, coaches, broken promises, that was all bad enough, but now we have an alleged ‘pause’ in the club’s activities.
“The club have left our young players bewildered, anxious and isolated, with training opportunities slipping away and uncertainty about their futures weighing heavily on the kids’ minds.
“The most loyal families and their children have been the worst hit, the ones who stuck it out and gave the benefit of the doubt at a time when other clubs were finalising their squads, signing new players and getting ready for the new season. These are the people who have been worse hit.”
It is that sense of being strung along by the club they had devoted years to, in many cases, that stings the most, with many left feeling as though they have been taken for fools.
“Our kids couldn’t participate in other club’s activities as they were anchored by a contract to the derailed club that was pretending everything was alright, and dangling the carrot of future professional contracts for players who were dedicated and uncompromising,” the parent continued.
“Coaches and staff who have given their heart and soul to the Hamilton Academy feel undermined and exhausted. Most of them have left.
“While families fear for the friendships their children have formed, and mourn the sense of pride and belonging built over years with the once prestigious club, the biggest damage is to the children themselves.
The collective group of parents are hoping that the offers of help from other clubs in the area will help restore a little of that faith.
The parent said: “It’s worth noting that clubs like Motherwell FC, Livingston FC, Greenock Morton FC, and Inspire FC have reached out to all the kids impacted to offer training opportunities while they search for a new club to keep the kids match fit, which is amazing. Whereas some bigger clubs have turned a blind eye or stated they are full.
“This is the future of Scottish football, and it’s in our hands. We as parents, coaches, management and governing bodies should be pulling together now more than ever to unite our players and the game. Our kids deserve fast action and a plan that recognises their dedication to the game, rather than cast them aside as an unfortunate circumstance of a club going under due to some mismanagement and poor decisions.”
The fans
Still reeling from the punishments attracted by the club last season, the fall of the Hamilton Academy feels to many of them as just the latest domino to fall as the Accies they knew is slowly stripped of its identity.
That is the view of one long-time supporter, who took a step this summer he had previously considered unthinkable. While some have protested and been criticised by the Accies board for doing so, he instead walked away from the club he has loved for his entire life.
“I'm kind of happy clapper type,” he said.
“I'm not one of these guys that abuses my team. I go and I support my team. I’ve been going for 53 years. I started going in November '72, and my grandpa who got me into it had been going from 1928, so between me and my grandpa, we've got over 100 years of supporting the club.
“I would even go to the under 16s and under 18s games, so I'm one of these guys who's a bit of an Accies anorak. If the first team game was home or away, I would go, and I've taken a lot of pleasure in watching a lot of the young guys coming through.
“Michael Devlin, Ali Crawford, I got to know their parents. James McCarthy and James McArthur, I watched these boys from playing in the youth team to playing all the way through and took great pleasure from their progress in the game after they had left.
“I can take my team losing. For every good season we’ve had, we’ve probably had seven or eight bad ones. But the way the club is right now, I just felt for me, the joy disappeared. I felt that there has been lies or misinformation, and a lot of smoke and mirrors. So, I’ve stopped going.
“This all goes back longer than the current owners and board, who were set up to fail in a way, in my opinion. But that doesn’t excuse what has happened since.
“The loss of the Academy is just the latest thing, and I worry where it’s all headed.”
Ironically, any fears that the Academy ‘pause’ may hint at jeopardy for the club itself as an ongoing concern have prompted some fans to speculate that they will only return when there is either a changing of the guard in the boardroom, or if Hamilton were to be liquidated and revived as a phoenix club.
“I don't want that to happen, but I have actually said to David Equi, a good friend and someone who is vocal on this as a fan, and other people, the only way I could actually see myself going back now is if the club went into liquidation and in effect came back as a phoenix club,” the fan said.
“I would absolutely go back in a heartbeat if it was run by people who were interested in football, and football only, and weren't interested in how much rent they could get from third parties for a stadium or whatever [like previous owner McGowan].
“So, although I don't want the club to fold, if they did fold and if they did reform and they started in Tier 10 or whatever, I would be one of the guys who would put in 50 quid a month or 100 quid a month, putting my money where my mouth is, simply to get another club going again. Unfortunately, that's where I see things.”
There is a realisation though that there are many varying opinions on the future direction of the club across the broad church of the Accies support, but the supporter hopes that they can soon unite behind a common cause for the benefit of the club.
“The Hamilton Accies support can't afford to have factions, because we've got no more than a few hundred hardcore fans,” he said.
“I'm gutted, you know. You can't just suddenly say, 'Oh, I walked away. I'm not going back.' The thing is, I do care, and I would love there to be circumstances that would allow me to go back.
“One of the big things for me is that me and my grandpa have put nearly 110 consecutive years of going, unbroken. When you say it like that, and then for something to make you feel that strongly that it makes you walk away, I think that says it all.”
