As a professor of exercise physiology, but also a volunteer coach at youth level and a battle-hardened Falkirk and Scotland follower, Chris Easton has long seen the potential for the passions of his working life and his spare time to come together for their mutual benefit.

During 12 years at the University of the West of Scotland, he developed partnerships – some informal, some formal - with clubs such as Glasgow City, St Mirren and Ayr United, where those teams would benefit from access to facilities they otherwise would be unable to afford as well as the expertise of their students, while the students would benefit from the exposure to the coalface of the industry.

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Now with Heriot-Watt University, Easton was enthused to read recommendations in the Scottish FA’s transition report for clubs and universities to work more closely together to help plug the skills and facilities gaps that may exist, particularly in relation to academies, so that the conditions for the development of young players are as optimal as they can possibly be within the funding limitations that exist in the Scottish game.

For Easton, that was a spark to reach out to the SFA and make them aware of an initiative he has pioneered called the Scottish Sporting Exercise Science Network, something he feels could have a transformative effect on youth development in this country.

“I think there's the potential to do something quite revolutionary,” Easton said.

“Fundamentally, as a university, you're all about developing students, and we are challenged to create opportunities for our students to get work-based learning.

“So, when you deliver a sports science programme at a very basic level, you have a need to engage with opportunities for students to go and get experience in that sports science space in the applied world.

“Of all the sports we would work with across Scotland, football is obviously a big one and the one with probably the most funding around professional support, so it's been natural for us to reach out to football clubs and say hey, are there opportunities for our students? And by the way, there are other areas in which we might work together?

“There have been lots of occasions where it would be the football clubs coming to us and saying, we need this, we need licensed students to come and deliver in our academy, or we need access to a bit of kit or a bit of academic expertise, and we had lots of really good ad hoc working relationships with football clubs when I was at WSU.

“You've got students, you've got the equipment, you've got the facilities with the expertise to start things like that. And so, all we need to do is take that model and multiply it across Scotland.

“I should say probably one thing that we need to resolve is that sometimes we talk about competition between clubs and them keeping things close to their chest, some of that exists within universities as well.

“So, we are competing with each other for students, for funding, but I think it has been something that's been spearheaded by the SFA, where we're strategic as a nation in how we might approach that.

“In my own head, I would kind of think it almost as a sort of satellite type model where you've got Heriot-Watt, Edinburgh, and Napier supporting clubs in the kind of east coast of Scotland. UWS, Glasgow and others would be supporting clubs in the west coast, and there's a kind of a bit more of a regional support structure to it.

“Or, it could potentially be areas of specialism around women's football, around nutrition, around psychology and managing things that way. There is a vehicle.

“One of the things I'll mention to Andy Gould at the SFA off the back of the transition report is that I've put together what we're calling a Scottish Sporting Exercise Science Network.

“It is in the very early stages of development, but basically, it's a sort of commitment for all universities in Scotland to undertake work in the sports science space, to come together and work collaboratively on things.

“And so there may be a kind of ready-made vehicle where we've got all the universities around the table and we're working in that space, ready and willing to have that conversation, to work with national partners like the SFA, SRU and others. So, I think there'll be a willingness from our side.

“I think things are moving on from where we were, and I think it's pretty exciting what we could do.”

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Where we were, as Easton found, and where many clubs still are, is stuck in a loop of short-term thinking. Something he does feel is slowly changing, with the transition report winning hearts and sharpening minds.

“I won't name them, but there's a current Premier League club where I had lots of really positive conversations with the academy director,” he said.

“I met the first team manager at the time, who was quite forward thinking around sport science, they were keen to kind of increase the professionalism within the club environment, and we discussed a model where for the princely sum of £18,000, the club would basically get a sport scientist for three years that would do a PhD with the university, the university would pay two-thirds of those costs.

“So, the university would benefit in impactful research, research at the coalface of the industry, from the partnership and the portfolio of the work that would take place, and the first team manager was really keen on it, the academy were really keen on it.

“The model was brilliant, and I sat down with the chairman and we sort of sold it, almost like a business pitch, and he said ‘well, for £13,000 I could get a player’.

“I mean it's one great example, and there are many examples of that in Scottish football.

“I could see the flip side of that as well and say well, do you know what? It's a results business, and this feels like a bit more of a kind of a risky long-term game. Bringing in a player, paying their salary, is a short-term one, but they're needing short-term results.

“What universities can provide is the volume, it's the manpower. It's the ability to support across first team and academy environments, across a range of specialisms; nutrition, strength and conditioning, sport science, performance analysis, talent ID, and ensuring all kinds of adequate support for the women's game, which is growing in terms of its increased professionalism as well.

“It's that integration. We have world-class laboratory facilities and equipment, so we've got things that football clubs don't have and can't afford. Likewise, they have the environment, the real-life sport team with athletes and coaches that we don't have.

“So, put that together and you've got something really, really good.”

Easton hopes that as more and more examples and success stories of universities working alongside professional clubs come to the fore, such as UWS’s partnerships with St Mirren and Ayr United, then we will see a further shift in attitudes, and a subsequent increase in professionalism and standards when it comes to developing our talent.

“I do sense it's changing,” he said.

“It's probably glacial in terms of how I would like to see it, sometimes you jealously look down to England and - appreciating the finances are on a totally different level – but years and years ago they moved to a much better structure around sport science, nutrition, strength and conditioning, partnerships with universities, in a much more joined up way.

“But there are definitely changing attitudes, and I should give a folk like Keith Lasley at St Mirren and Graeme Mathie at Ayr United credit, because they're coming in with a very forward-thinking, integrated approach.

“With St Mirren you see they are a club that are going places, and they've achieved great success on the pitch, and so they're looking at how they continue to achieve that, and they recognise that working with the universities is a way to do that. It's actually documented in their club strategy, which I think is kind of breath of fresh air now, and in how it sort of integrates the community.

“So, I would say yes, it's changing, but without a doubt there are pockets of that sort of old school, ‘sports science is nonsense’ approach that still take place.

“I've seen really tangible benefits to both parties from engaging in these partnerships, from simple on the ground stuff like student placement, up to actually undertaking sports science support, access to facilities, developing players, and what I'm trying to do now moving to Herriot-Watt is beginning to almost repeat that process.

“We have Hearts on the doorstep at Oriam for example, the SRU. I'm a Falkirk supporter, so I have a bit of a bias, but we've already met with Jamie Swinney, and I know Jamie from my coaching days at Stenhousemuir, and so we're having a conversation about Falkirk and formal partnerships as well.

“So I was really pleased to see actually one of the things in the transition report was an idea to work more collaboratively with universities, and this has actually been a kick up my backside, because I remember reading and thinking ‘right I need to email Andy and say hey, by the way, we're probably ready to have those conversations, let's do it’.

“I'm going to initiate that conversation as well, but there's the potential for that at club level, at national level, it's really, really significant.”

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Another problem that such partnerships can help to solve is the lack of data available on players who have been through the academy system in Scotland, with Easton sure there is the expertise available within Scotland’s universities to fill in those knowledge gaps if the will exists within the game.

“I know some clubs do it individually ,” he said.

“So, I know Hearts have their own system, they have a database, a performance system where if you need information on a player about the load, there is a central resource, so coaches or sports scientists can tap into that.

“But that's their system, so it's not something the SFA have access to, so it goes back to that point of, this is a national prerogative, you know?

“It's really up to the SFA to set that system, but equally you can sense that clash, because the SFA is about measuring and developing the progress of Scottish players, and each club, you have to do something additional or separate, because they are monitoring not just Scottish players, but all the nationalities within the team.

“Even with the duplication of effort, you can see it right away, you're just going to get resistance, and you're going to get non-engagement from clubs, and therefore if the data's worthless, there's not much point in engaging with it.

“From our side, it's an interesting one. The software, the hardware, the models, they all exist. It’s just trying to find the right one, and to get that kind of buy-in from the clubs that would integrate the national system.

“That type of expertise, of course, exists within the universities and other industries in Scotland.”