Why Rocco Vata won't be the last Celtic kid to quit Paradise

The Quality Street Gang was a term coined by the Scottish media to describe the Celtic reserve team of the late 1960s. Several of the group eventually replaced members of the Lisbon Lions team that had won the European Cup in 1967.

The 1970s saw the likes of George Connelly, Kenny Dalglish, Davie Hay, Danny McGrain, Lou Macari, Paul Wilson, Vic Davidson and Pat McCluskey go on to win major honours at Celtic as well as being recognised by their country at various levels including full internationals.

Celtic has always tended to have a production line of youth talent that was the envy of every other club in the country.

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The 1980s spawned the likes of Charlie Nicholas, Danny Crainie and the wonderfully gifted and mercurial talent of Paul McStay. There was a gradual and understandable decline in the 1990s as Rangers ruled the domestic roost and Celtic never really poured money into anything let alone the youth academy.

The new millennium ushered in New Labour as well as a New Hope that Celtic would once again get their act together when it came to rearing their own produce. They most certainly have kept up their end of the bargain on that front.

Callum McGregor, James Forrest and Kieran Tierney are testament to that in the last two decades. You can throw in honourable mentions for Anthony Ralston and Stephen Welsh. However the more cynical among us will point out that the likes of Tierney, Ralston and Welsh were given their first-team opportunity fortuitously owing to injuries to already established stars.

The irony is that though for every one of the players mentioned above the club has also haemorrhaged other precocious talent at a rather alarming rate. There may well be a whole load of different factors behind youngsters wanting to leave Celtic. More money is certainly a massive factor.

Young talents being tempted by the bright lights of a new city is certainly not a new phenomenon in football either At a club like Celtic, the fans tended not to get too overly concerned about youngsters leaving if they had not made an impact on the first team in any shape or form but it has become an increasing trend and unwelcome pattern down G40 way.

The common denominator that exists in every case is the lack of a genuine pathway from the lower levels to the first team and kids find that nowadays their path to regular first-team football can be accelerated by quitting Glasgow's east end for pastures new.

The Quality Street Gang knew that they could get farmed out or loaned out to junior football - King Kenny spent time with Cumbernauld United in the 1960s. Cumbernauld United, for goodness sake, but he knew when he returned to the Celtic Reserves that the pathway was open to him to carve a name for himself with the green and white first team.

That opportunity has been denied a succession of youngsters in the last decade or more. Opportunities to blood young talent simply don't exist when the pressure is on to win every single game, at least domestically.

Therefore, Celtic as an entity struggles to offer the pathway and that quantum leap from youth football or Lowland League football to the first team. In recent years the likes of Karamoko Dembele, Barry Hepburn, Liam Morrison, Josh Adam, and Ben Doak.

Back in September Evan Easton recently became the latest Celtic youth player to depart the club at a young age as he moved on to Premier League side Sheffield United’s youth academy.

READ MORE: Celtic 'grant permission' for Vata to Bologna transfer talks

Now it looks for all intents and purposes that 18-year-old Rocco Vata will be the latest to flee the Celtc nest. This week Celtic gave Serie A side Bologna permission to open up dialogue with the son of former star Rudi. Vata has long been labelled a striking prodigy in the Lowland League but despite constantly flirting with the first team he never quite made the breakthrough.

A player of his so-called talent really should have racked up 25 appearances by now. Nobody will ever know if Vata is/was good enough to play for the Celtic first team. Yet it does look like Vata will go the same way as those young players listed above who sought regular first-team football elsewhere.

Ironically all of those players represent a kind of golden generation themselves. They should have been lauded and heralded as the modern-day equivalent of a 'Quality Street Gang'. Whilst all of the blame does not lie squarely at Celtic's door there seems to be disillusionment from a lot of young players who do not see a clear pathway.

Dembele spent a year at French club Brest before signing a year-long loan deal at Blackpool in August 2023. Injuries continue to plague him and prevent his development.

Barry Hepburn and Liam Morrison both left Celtic for Bayern Munich II at a young age. Hepburn is currently on loan and doing reasonably well at Championship club Queen’s Park, whilst Morrison is on loan at English League One outfit Wigan. There is still plenty of scope for both players to continue their rise and development with the Bundesliga side.

Adam departed for the Man City Academy and whilst the likelihood of first-team minutes under Pep Guardiola at the Etihad are virtually non-existent recent reports say that the player has been attracting interest from the likes of French side Lille for his exploits in the City Academy.

Doak made his Celtic debut under Ange Postecoglou at the age of just 16 and after just two appearances, he quit the club for Liverpool. Now 18, Doak continues to feature in first-team games for Jürgen Klopp’s first team as well as catch the eye. Many say it is only a matter of time before he is drafted into Steve Clarke's full international Scotland squad.

Vata certainly won't be the first or last youngster to quit Parkhead in search of a new and fresh challenge.

Quality Street Gang? More like Variety Street where spice is the life of many. Sadly for Celtic, the spice of life for many a young talent these days lies far away from Paradise.