Big names without clubs as cash crisis puts emphasis on price over experience DEREK Riordan is the third-most prolific striker in SPL history. Craig Gordon broke the British transfer record for a goalkeeper. James McFadden scored the Scotland goal that will be remembered more than any other in modern times. Add to that list Garry O'Connor, who earned himself a lucrative transfer to Lokomotiv Moscow, as well as Michael Stewart, who spent seven years with Manchester United, and a pattern begins to emerge. As Scottish football, in its current impoverished state, concentrates ever more on the young players who are its cheapest and most sensible way forward, some of its more experienced professionals are in danger of being forgotten. What Riordan, Gordon, O'Connor and Stewart have in common - apart from an Edinburgh background, and 63 Scotland appearances between them - is that they are out of work. Were it not for a three-month deal that is nearing its end at Sunderland, McFadden would be in a similar boat. These guys are too young for the knacker's yard. Like Riordan and O'Connor, McFadden is 29. Gordon is 30. Stewart is 31. Sure, Gordon and McFadden have been hampered by injuries, while Riordan and O'Connor have other "issues" but the fact that they all find themselves without a club before they are past what should have been their peak is a damning indictment of the game's harsh economic climate. Nor are they the only ones. Robbie Neilson, the former Hearts full-back, now 32, is another unemployment statistic. His explanation for the phenomenon is that many who moved away from Scotland to further their careers now find that they have priced themselves out of the market. "The difference between England and Scotland at the moment is night and day," he says. You have a situation where boys are looking for too much money to come back up the road. Financially, you just don't get it here unless you're at Celtic. Boys could be on £20,000 a week down there quite easily. The ones mentioned have probably earned that, maybe more. If you come back to Scotland, it could be Dundee United or Kilmarnock and you're talking about £1,000 a week, maybe £800. So is it worth it? I know it's still good money but a lot of these boys have made a lot already. They don't need it. Neilson doesn't quite fall into that category but knows where his fellow pros are coming from. After a relatively lucrative two-year spell at Leicester City, Neilson spent last season at Dundee United, only to reject the new contract they offered him at the end of it. After failing to find a suitable club in England, he returned north for a trial period with Falkirk. It comes down to whether boys really want to keep playing football. I know it's not a nice thing to say, but it's true. How much does it mean to them? Do they really want to come back and play for about a tenth of what they were on down south? In some cases it might be a 30th or a 50th. It's whether you have the will to come and play football for money that's not exactly going to set you up for life. Neilson has the will. He has played three times for Falkirk this season, but the recurrence of a troublesome knee injury, one that would continue to restrict his appearances, means that the club's board are not prepared to offer him a deal. His big hope is that surgery, which he will undergo in London this week, could persuade them to change their mind before the end of the season. In the meantime, he is volunteering his services behind the scenes. Falkirk get the benefit of his expertise, passed on to their younger players. He gets access to their training facilities, as well as an opportunity to gain invaluable coaching experience. It does not pay the bills, or help him to provide for his daughters - aged three, five and seven - but he isn't willing to give up on football, even if the feeling is not mutual. His ambition is to forge a career in coaching and, if it takes a year of penny-pinching to set him on his way, he will bite the bullet. "You have to make a sacrifice," he says. There comes a point in your career when you have to think about the next step. Continuing to play, as Neilson hopes to do for a year or two yet, will not be easy. Thanks to the economic squeeze, chairmen are asking why they should spend money on players whose value is unlikely to increase. They could invest in four youngsters for the same amount. Experienced professionals are going out of fashion, not just at the top but all the way down the food chain. For Jack Ross, of players" union PFA Scotland, it is a short-sighted approach. He says: "This is a time when we are so focused on developing young players that we have maybe forgotten about those at the opposite end of the scale. In any industry, any walk of life, young people with a bright future need to learn from those who are time-served. I know it's not exciting for fans to watch journeymen players but they are important to the development of younger ones. Some, as a matter of necessity, are moving into coaching earlier than ever. Ross is the assistant manager of Dumbarton, where his new boss is Ian Murray, still only 31. Ross also cites the example of his friend, John Potter, 33, who scaled down his playing commitments at Dunfermline Athletic so that he could accept a more secure job as coach of the club's under-20 team. But there are only so many coaching posts available. As Ross wrote in a recent column for the PFA newsletter, many are quitting the game altogether, and they are doing so too soon. "It's a worrying trend," he says. Gary Mason, who I played with at St Mirren, was at Dunfermline last year, but he is not playing at all now. He's only 33. He's chosen to develop a career outside football [as an Edinburgh taxi driver], which is fine, but sometimes that complete break comes too soon. PFA Scotland offers grants for further education, whether it takes the form of a coaching course or an academic one but Ross would like to see more funding made available to those preparing for the transition. He also wishes that clubs were more imaginative, as they are in Scandinavia. A better working relationship with the community could lead to more roles for mature players and more potential for salaries to be funded, at least partly, by local partners. Neilson agrees that not enough is being done to keep football's good men in the game. He points out that professionals such as Scott Severin, the former Aberdeen and Dundee United player who had to retire last season due to injury, are having to coach almost for nothing - for the love of it - if they want to pursue a career in the dugout. "In Scotland, they don't pay enough for coaching at the grassroots," says Neilson. In Holland or France, the guys who are taking the under-12s or the under-13s are getting decent money, whereas in Scotland you're picking up maybe £2,000 a year. That makes it difficult to get players to stay in the game, which means that kids are not learning from the best people. As players at every level are discovering - from Riordan and O'Connor to Neilson and a host of proven professionals in the lower divisions - some in Scottish football are interested only in its young guns. Time will tell if they are shooting themselves in the foot.