Just 22 years ago Alan McLeish borrowed £300 from his mother to purchase a transit van which, along with a couple of chainsaws, would allow him to set up his business Quality Tree Surgeons.

He had left school with no qualifications, his plan on doing so having been to pursue a career in professional football which was then wrecked, along with a cruciate ligament, by a challenge from a former junior footballer who was incensed by one nutmeg too many.

Going it alone was a huge risk for a man with a young family but like most who succeed in business McLeish is clearly not averse to those and he also had the drive to make the most of every opportunity.

Over the ensuing two decades the reason his company is still called QTS has faded into the background as he has built an empire providing what might be described as quality train services, his rail maintenance firm based in sprawling grounds close to Strathaven, which contain his very own rail track, used for experimenting with new developments rather than Casey Jones-style joy-riding.

McLeish's success revolves around a capacity to come up with effective solutions to problems.

"I saw opportunities originally where things could be done differently," he explains.

"We could do things mechanically and what the clients liked was that the way we had delivered a particular project, they would ask if we could deliver something for another discipline.

"If we didn't know the particular discipline we would bring some people in but we would manage it and would be part of it and understand it and those people would then stay on."

His mentality is such that he candidly admits the occasions when ideas have not worked out the way he hoped still rankle, but the way his business has grown and continues to as QTS increasingly moves into the international arena demonstrates how rare those have been.

"People see how you work, like it and ask you if you could do this job as well. It grew from there and you see opportunities. Not every idea I've had has been a brilliant idea. The ones that aren't are sore because you are convinced... a couple of them potentially would have worked," he says wistfully.

Wherein lies a great opportunity for Scottish sport because, as a wide range of sponsorships demonstrates, McLeish's love of sport has never diminished however he acknowledges that the sportspeople who have benefited from his help so far are those lucky enough to have had access to him or those around him.

"It is random at the moment," he admits.

"We would like it to be a bit more systematic because it's hit or miss if we bump into somebody, if somebody comes up with an idea or a young talent that needs some help."

He would prefer a more scientific approach, working with sports governing bodies to provide targeted support at the development stage of careers and not only through sponsorship since he sees areas in which Scottish sport would benefit from his approach and, importantly, McLeish is willing to offer his time and expertise.

However he has been shocked to be told that there are some amateur sports administrators who believe it is immoral to accept help from business people, effectively preferring to remain dependent on the public purse.

"That's insane," says McLeish.

"For anybody to say that is very insular. I don't get it at all. Are they scared of losing control? Is it a control thing? It must be."

In saying so he sees similarities between the sports industry and charity organisations that he also heavily supports but is beginning to look at more closely.

Wife Phyllis holds the company's purse strings as its finance director and has flagged up concerns about how much of what they donate to certain charities is spent on administrators rather than helping those they are seeking to.

"She pointed out to me recently that some of the chief execs had massive pay increases and two that I donate quite heavily to were among those. When you measure how much per pound goes to the people it's meant for it's pretty alarming actually," McLeish observes.

That is a real issue in Scottish sport, too and McLeish - who notes that his current sponsorship arrangements have the benefit of ensuring that the beneficiaries are those he intends to fund - knows it. However he prefers, as he has done throughout his career, to focus upon ways of sharing best practice, citing examples close to home and further afield.

"I definitely believe there are jobs for the boys in a lot of the governing bodies. What they actually do I don't know, absolutely no idea, but when you go down to a club like Kilmarnock and see the youth team boys, the work they do is fantastic," he says.

"If you look at the Scandinavian countries they are way ahead of us in everything they seem to do, just everything they do.

"I think, if you look at the investment the Scandinavians have put into not only football, but if you look at the sports centres, they've got top of the range sports centres, God knows how many they have, but one at least in every small town or just outside every small town. They've got a lot of volunteers too.

"My wife and I would love to get involved in all that sort of stuff. If you look at the coverage of what we actually do just now and the money we put to young talented kids, that's what we look at, kids who potentially could make it just with a wee bit help. If we can help them achieve something then we've made a difference."

There are echoes in his thinking of the way Fergus McCann put business principles in place at Celtic Park, calling people to account and McLeish acknowledges that.

"In the fullness of time my wife would be heavily involved with this because she's probably one of the most talented financial directors in the business without a shadow of a doubt. She could make a big difference to a lot of these," he reckons.

The task, as McLeish sees it, is to ask the right questions before coming up with the answers and he believes that not enough of that goes on in Scottish football and Scottish sport in general.

"There are a couple of people I love listening to who speak a lot of sense. Tom English because he calls it the way it is. He's not scared. His opinions are bang on. Davie Provan's another one who talks sense," he opines.

"One of the things I've got with some of the journalists is, can they differentiate between what they see as a friend or an ally? Can they ask the awkward question? And I don't think they can."

Whether or not that is so those who believe there is far too much waste of public money may have a new champion.

That he is someone with a reputation for coming up with ways of doing things more effectively is an opportunity Scottish sport surely cannot ignore.