THERE were a couple of special guests at Wimbledon on men’s semi-final day.
Making use of a day off following their Europa League tie against NSI Runavik of the Faroe Islands, Hibs’ Ryan Porteous and Fraser Murray made a whistle-stop visit to the All England Club.
In addition to taking in the tennis, the two Scotland youth footballers had time to squeeze in a chat with their mentor Andy Murray, who was practising off site in preparation for the US hard courts.
Read more: Hibernian midfielder John McGinn may have to wait a year to join Celtic
It need hardly be said what the Scot’s primary focus is, even if his world ranking has dropped to No.838 as he prepares himself for the latest stage in his comeback from serious hip problems.
This all starts – barring any last-minute accidents – this Monday at the
Citi Bank Open in Washington. But in the meantime, his side line in sports mentorship, via his 77 Sports Management firm, is gathering pace.
It is coming on for 18 months since the 31-year-old and business advisors Matt Gentry and Gawain Davies set up this innovative boutique agency for representation of sports talent.
While Gentry and Davies boast an enviable background in sports marketing, management and branding from firms such as IMG and XIX, the firm’s unique selling point is having a shortcut to the performance knowhow of Andy Murray and his team. While the Scot is on home terrain advising young tennis players about coaching, his grasp of best practice in sports science, nutrition, and even media-handling, is transferable to most sports.
While Murray isn’t in the business of writing blank cheques forever, what makes his model different is the fact that he is prepared to invest in young talent without immediate prospect of a return.
The paradigm of the desperate football agent, desperate to move an aspiring young player on from club to club every two years, simply doesn’t apply here.
While he has been taking his own baby steps back to full competition this summer, some of his young proteges have been making giant strides. Bearsden teenager Aidan McHugh might have been disappointed with a first-round singles defeat in what is his last crack at junior Wimbledon, but the Australian Open junior semi-finalist has been hitting regularly with both Roger Federer and Murray himself, whom he now stands only 100 spots or so behind in the world rankings.
In addition to the hard yards of cutting his ranking in the seniors, McHugh will hope to sign off as a junior with a bang at the US Open, a competition claimed by his mentor in 2004.
Katie Swan, a 19-year-old from Bristol by way of Kansas, who was included in the Great Britain Fed Cup team by Judy Murray at the age of 16, racked up her maiden Wimbledon main draw win and climbed to her highest ever ranking of 176.
Shannon Hylton, one half of a formidable sprinting duo with twin sister Cheriece, will compete for Great Britain at the European Championships in athletics in Berlin next month. And then there are the Hibs duo of Murray and Porteous, the latter of which built on a breakthrough season with the Easter Road club by helping Scotland’s Under-21 side reach the semi-finals of the prestigious Toulon Tournament.
Read more: Hibernian midfielder John McGinn may have to wait a year to join Celtic
With the family connection of grandfather Roy Erskine – the Hibs link clearly fits the Murray brand – there is a synergy with the development model at the club under Neil Lennon and Leeann Dempster.
So where do 77 go next? Well, while the parameters of the enterprise could be expanded once Murray hangs up his racket for good, for now this will remain a small, select band, with perhaps another three or four additions to the client list by the end of the year.
Further inroads into the football market, perhaps even the Scottish football market, are on the cards, along with a couple of further signings in tennis.
Getting a foothold in golf remains on the to-do list. Not all models will necessarily be the same – in the case of sprinters Shannon and Cheriece Hylton, they only look after the commercial side of the business – but in all cases these are young sporting talents with potential which Murray can help them fulfil.
It is something he enjoys, yet something to takes seriously indeed. Further glory hopefully awaits Andy Murray in his own right, but the succession plan is already taking shape.
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