I played football with Steve Clarke when he was nine years old says Jim Delahunt

STEVE CLARKE will be the proudest Scot in the world when he leads his players out to face Germany in Munich on Friday. 

And the 60 year-old former Killie boss will be the pride of our North Ayrshire home town of Saltcoats as well.

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Clarke honed his skills in a school of hard knocks called St Mary’s Primary, an educational institution where the scary headmaster John McCann doubled as an even more terrifying football coach.

I was one of those players just good enough to make the 1973/74 squad and no more, but Steve was one of the younger boys who stepped up from Primary 6 to play with the Primary 7s in the “big team” and former Celtic starlet McCann knew a player when he saw one.

Quite a few of the guys in this photo went on to play at senior and Junior level as I pursued a much easier career presenting football on TV, but the future St Mirren player who went on to star for Chelsea was to prove leagues above the rest of us.

For those of us kids who liked kicking a ball, St Mary’s was all about football morning, noon and night – playtime, lunchtime and long after the bell had rung to go home.

McCann built his team around an organised “dinnertime league” which would feature 3 matches every lunchtime before teams were picked for weekly after-school trial matches which would decide that week’s first XI.

The trophies which the Scotland boss helped us win are the North Ayrshire League, the Ayrshire Cup and the Co-op Super Cup, a haul which would have been 4 if yours truly hadn’t sold the jerseys in the North Ayrshire Cup semi-final!

Steve’s older brother Paul was 6 years above us and went on to play over 400 times for Kilmarnock but the kid in our team went on to reach even loftier heights in the game as Mark Reid from the St Mary’s team a year above us was starring for Celtic and Charlton. 

I could probably count on one hand the number of times our parallel professional careers have brought Steve and I together but, like me, he’s not averse to a day watching horse-racing and football’s rarely discussed when there’s serious business with the ponies.

My biggest thrill as a TV presenter was being in charge of Scotland against Brazil in the opening match of France 98 on ITV so I’m wishing another St Mary’s boy all the luck in the world with the opening match at EURO 2024.

I’m due back in Saltcoats for a party at my brother’s on June 28 and the evening will go with a bigger swing if Steve is getting ready to lead Scotland out for a last 16 match in Berlin or Dortmund the following night.

Fingers crossed.

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He will be joined by our men in Germany – Bill Leckie, Robert Grieve and Derek McGregor.

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