The pitch has gone now. No Astroturf for Scotland's top teams to worry about when they visit New Douglas Park. However, the crop of promising young footballers who were nurtured on it could be a much tougher thing for visitors to deal with.

Hamilton Academical's return to the Clydesdale Bank Premier League after a 20-year absence meant the Lanarkshire club had to give up the one thing that has been at the core of its renaissance: the artificial pitch that was home to its remarkable youth system. More than 200 boys used it every night of the week, with Billy Reid's first-team simply one part of the chain when they staged games every other weekend.

However, the Scottish Premier League has vetoed plastic pitches after Dunfermline Athletic's wretched experiment six years ago and even though Hamilton's was a far superior third-generation version, the surface that gave them an unbeaten home record in the first division last term had to be jettisoned when Reid's team became champions.

The lush grass that has replaced it has been Reid's costliest summer signing. More than £500,000 was spent on the real thing, cutting into the manager's budget to recruit new players. Reid, though, believes he has the real thing when it comes to football talent. He is a man who has grown his own team, so impressively that the most eye-catching items in the New Douglas Park garden, James McCarthy and James McArthur, have drawn offers from Liverpool and Italy.

Multimedia

• Chelsea: On-the-job training

• Man United: You've been merked, Capello

• Reading: Is Lita's yesterday's man?

Now there are TWO ways to feed your fantasy

We have built on last year's success of PlayTheGame by offering fantasy football managers double the fun this coming season

Related Links

• Rangers target SPL to lift the gloom

• Csaba Laszlo offers hope to Hearts

Nine of the Hamilton squad that won first division championship medals are teenagers and if the midfield pair of McCarthy, now 17, and McArthur are the most notable, they are not the most precocious. Reid has two 16-year-olds, Grant Gillespie and Jordan Kirkpatrick, in his first-team squad, while McCarthy lost his honour as the youngest first-team player in Hamilton's history when 15-year-old Euan Lindsay made his debut in a pre-season friendly. The defender then turned down an offer from Rangers.

“It's a remarkable place,” Reid, whose team begin their Premier League campaign at home on Monday night when they face Dundee United, said yesterday. “The kids are not in the first-team as window dressing. They are there on merit and they are maturing in front of my eyes.

“People said I was taking a risk when I played James McCarthy two seasons ago when he had just turned 16. I think he has inspired the others.

I had a 17-year-old knocking on my door last season, asking why he was not in the first team. That is incredible. It would not happen at any other club. However, it is the ethos of Hamilton.”

Reid was lured to the Lanarkshire club by Ronnie McDonald, the chairman, in 2005 from Clyde, the team that McDonald had previously invested in. Accies only returned to Hamilton in 2002 after eight nomadic years renting other grounds after a previous owner had sold their own to a supermarket chain, but the artificial pitch installed by McDonald allowed the club to develop its own talent in a youth system from 9 to 19 in an area in which the Old Firm generally cream off the best talent (Barry Ferguson, of Rangers, and Paul Hartley, of Celtic, are locals).

“It was a shame we had to rip up the artificial pitch,” Reid said. “It staged more than 320 games last season, for all our age groups. If you consider that we will maybe use this grass surface for 18 Premier League games and eight reserve matches, where do the other 300 games go? I used to love looking out every night and watching the kids train on it. Now we're having to borrow pitches this season for our youth squads.

“We have good youth coaches as well. That is why we are regarded as a good club for youngsters. James McCarthy was in Celtic's youth system at 12 and then Livingston let him go. He could have been lost to the game but he flourished here, in a good football environment. The artificial pitch helped us to play better football. We pass the ball here, at every level from the first team down.

“There are some smashing young players in Scotland and it makes me despair when I hear people moan about a dearth of talent. Clubs in England and Europe are interested in McCarthy and McArthur. There is a freshness about us. I have players who are hungry to play in the Premier League. It does not frighten them, it inspires them. I know there are players in my side right now who will be stars of the future but I also know that there will be the next James McCarthy somewhere in our youth system when players move on to bigger clubs.”

Hamilton Academical

Manager: Billy Reid

Last season: Promoted

Players in: Sean Murdoch (Dunfermline), Mark Corcoran (St Mirren), Derek Lyle (Dundee), Lucas-Jordan Akins (Huddersfield, free), Tom Hateley (Reading, loan)

Players out: Mark Gilhaney (Dundee), Bryn Halliwell (QoS), Gary Twigg (Brechin City)

Graham Spiers' tip: If James McCarthy and James McArthur, two wonderful young talents, can shine in the top flight, then Accies will have a chance, but survival will be tough. Reliant, too, on Richard Offiong for goals. It's a gorgeous story, but a tall order.

Prediction: 12th

Classic Times Fantasy Football is back. Sign up for £3 a team or 3 for £6