Heighway on reserve teams

“Football is terrible at ever having mature debates. Reserve-team football is a problem in this country and I think most people will agree but because the managers feel it has some value, it gets retained. In many places there is a three-tier structure; a first team, a reserve team and an academy. My own view is that there should be a two-tier structure; a first team and an academy, there shouldn’t be anything in the middle. I would prefer to see a system where we keep boys to 18 or 19 at the academy.

"If they are not good enough for Rafa or for anybody’s first-team squad at that moment, then they go on loan rather than going in the reserves. Reserve-team football has become a huge anomaly. It has no place any more. They would be better off going off on loan.”

He points to the way Chris Eagles went out on loan and then gave the management of Manchester United the confidence to put him in the first team. “I’ve told everyone in the game this. I would guess 95 per cent of those who develop young players would agree with me but every time it comes up we get fobbed off with ’the managers want the reserve team’.

There was a time when the reserves had a value, he says, when the senior players would play alongside the best youth players - but this was 15 or 20 years ago. “But now the managers never play their first-team players in the reserves. Our first-team manager never does. I would like to see a campaign to cut out this meaningless football. Boys need to get out into the real world of football. Its needs people to have vision.

Heighway on David Beckham

Heighway left Liverpool in 1982, with 444 appearances under his belt, and went to the United States to join the Minnesota Kicks. He is worried Beckham’s move to Los Angeles will harm the development of soccer in America and have the same, negative impact that Pele’s arrival had in 1975 when the North America Soccer League started from the top and worked its way down. The failure of that experiment meant the game’s developers realised they had to use the potentially massive base of grassroots footballers and build the game up from there. “We’re still looking for the first American superstar, no individual superstar has come through yet - someone who can be the talisman for American soccer”. Beckham’s arrival, he says, will stunt that process. “It would worry me that Beckham will break the tradition of handing soccer back to students on a smaller scale and a firmer footing.”

Heighway on Liverpool's new stadium

“There have been too many battles lost and won over the years at Anfield for me to envisage a new stadium. But if we need the revenue from 60 000 or 70,000 people then it’s a no-brainer. Anfield is only bricks and mortar. The magic will be the designers ensuring the intimacy for the fans.”