When your dad has been the captain of the club whose academy you are progressing through, it would stand to reason that growing up in such a shadow would be a daunting prospect. Scott Leitch, former mainstay of the Motherwell midfield and leader of the Fir Park side for years during the noughties, was all too keenly aware that would be precisely the situation facing his sons, Jack and Robbie.
Luckily, Leitch was on hand to oversee their development as head of the Motherwell academy that his own precocious talents were progressing through as they made their own way toward the professional game, but that situation also threw up its own difficulties.
Well before his boys reached that stage in their development though, Leitch was eager to ensure that his offspring wouldn’t be pigeonholed simply by dint of their surname.
“I was really conscious of that, absolutely,” said Leitch. “Jack was a wee bit different to Robbie, because Robbie didn’t really play football until he was at under-11 level.
“You see young kids today at six trying to get into football clubs, but Robbie wasn’t like that. Jack was the one who always wanted to play and go on and become a football player, whereas Robbie was into gymnastics and different things. That was great for us, because it was something different for us too.
“It was good at that time to go and experience these different things for myself.”
As Jack and Robbie’s talents began to flourish, and they moved under their dad’s charge in the Motherwell academy, Leitch was adamant preferential treatment would not be forthcoming. When they were there, they would be given the same treatment as any of the other boys whose futures Leitch had become invested in. If they were lucky.
“You want them to make their own mistakes and do their own thing,” he said. “You want to be there if things go wrong and give advice if things aren’t going as well as they should be going, but that’s like any dad.
“But I’ve dealt with so many young players as a manager, an assistant manager and being director of the academy, and these kids become like your own when you work with them day in, day out. You’ve got that closeness to them, and it doesn’t matter in that setting if it’s your own son, you just want all these kids to do well.”
Leitch admits though that sometimes his knowledge of the football industry, and its harsh realities, saw him coming down on his sons in a way he didn’t with the other prospects.
“You end up being harder on your own kids,” he said. “I think most football players would say they are harder on their own sons because you know what they are going to come up against.
“If it’s a mum and dad that isn’t involved in the football world, they probably see their sons just doing well because they only see the good bits in them, whereas as a coach, you always see the negatives and where they could do better. It’s more challenging for them because they always hear about the negatives, whereas if the other boys do one good thing, that’s probably what their parents will focus on and talk about.
“A lot of ex-professionals and managers are quite tough on their boys when they come in. Motherwell have got quite a lot of kids of former players in the system at the minute, the likes of Allan Johnston, Lee Miller, Colin Meldrum and Craig Beattie, so there are lots of kids who have these players or managers as their parents.
“We know the demands and how hard that is as a coach or as a manager. But at the end of the day, you are like any other parent, you just want what’s best for them.”
As the boys reached their late teens, they seemed to have the brightest of futures ahead of them, albeit three years apart. Jack, the eldest, broke into the Motherwell first team under Stuart McCall, only to rupture his posterior cruciate ligament, a serious injury that has no doubt hampered his development. Now 22, he is working his way back to his best at Peterhead under the watchful gaze of Jim McInally.
Robbie, 19. won the Scottish Youth Cup with Motherwell under-20s in 2016, before winning a move to Burnley. He was released last summer, but is now resurrecting his career on-loan from St Mirren at Queen’s Park.
“The two of them are doing extremely well just now, and it’s great to see them playing,” said Leitch. “The only difficulty is in choosing which one to go and watch. With Jack being up at Peterhead, it’s usually him that gets put on the backburner. Robbie is at Queen’s Park, and you always get a nice seat at Hampden, and it’s so close, so that’s winning the battle more often than not!
“It’s not hard to let them go and have other coaches take over, especially when it’s with people you know and trust. I’m great friends with Gus and Jim, so I know they are in safe hands. I just take a back seat and watch the game like any other parent.”
After leaving Motherwell just before Christmas to pursue opportunities at first-team level once more, the former Ross County manager is enjoying the opportunity to go and watch his boys regularly in the meantime.
And he has one bit of advice for his sons, or any other young player making his way in the game.
“The main thing for me is that I just want the boys to enjoy it, that’s the most important thing,” he said. “When they are not enjoying it, that’s when it becomes a problem for any parent.
“I try to tell them that, it’s the one bit of advice I give to any young player, and particularly my boys – you have to enjoy it.”
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