The timing of the conversation felt propitious.

Soren Gran has made a significant contribution on our sports scene since, one way or another, the Swede helped turn curler Dave Murdoch from a two-time Olympic failure into an Olympic finalist and silver medallist.

What Gran had to say resonated with a message received the previous day from Jim Craig, who for reasons both good and ill - he gave away the penalty in the 1967 European Cup final and then delivered the pass for the equaliser - will always be remembered as a key figure on the day a team of west coast boys became the Lisbon Lions.

I first met Gran a couple of months ago and have found his ideas on what needs to be done by curling to capitalise on this year's unprecedented success, when both the men's and women's rinks as well as the Paralympic team all won medals, to be both interesting and imaginative.

Craig and I have known one another for the best part of 20 years, not through football but because one of his four talented rugby playing sons was among the first and most exciting young Scottish players to emerge in the professional era. James would win caps for Scotland at rugby just as his sister, Lisa, would at hockey, helping ensure that their father had a breadth of understanding of Scottish sport that is far greater than the majority of those devoted to the national game.

Yet from these very different backgrounds there was a remarkable consistency in these recent messages from Craig and Gran. Our climate is such, they each pointed out, that if we want a healthier nation in spirit and mind we must build more indoor sporting facilities.

There are those who will tell you that Scotland's government and sporting authorities have recognised this and are addressing it successfully. Certainly there are some fine indoor and all-weather facilities around the country, notably at Toryglen in Glasgow, at Ravenscraig in Lanarkshire, at the Aberdeen Sports Village and in my home town of Stirling at The Peak.

However, for present and past generations it has perhaps been both too little and too late, while much more needs to be done for future generations.

In terms of offering perspective Gran's take on things (see related articles) was perhaps most telling. 

Gran came to Scotland from Sweden where he had been working with their top players because the GB curling programme was better funded, yet has been taken aback by his experience on arriving in a country where the climate is, if anything, less suitable to outdoor sport than that of his native land.

"Sweden has twice as many [indoor] facilities as they have here," he said. "The biggest change here has to be council and government-run facilities. I have to say I'm very surprised that you [Scotland] have not that many of them."

Craig has, meanwhile, produced a paper (see related articles) on the need for improved facilities which is at least partly inspired, I suspect, by the fact that, while his five children attended private school in Glasgow, he has grandchildren who may be educated at Scottish state schools.

He wants to see provision across the country of quality indoor facilities suitable for football, rugby, hockey and athletics. The full details of his proposal can be seen online, adjacent to this article and no doubt they can be picked apart for all sorts of technical reasons.

The important thing here, however, is that both these men have simultaneously and quite separately, expressed cause for concern about such similar issues.

My suspicion is that there are rather more indoor facilities around the country than many of us are aware of, not least within the school estate, but the real issue is how they are financed and accessed.

Having somewhat reluctantly had lengthy involvement with the private public partnership project which was required to get four desperately needed new secondary schools built in Stirling, I know, for example, that there is a commercial element to the use of facilities at such establishments outside of school hours.

There are also some dubious claims being made about conditions being imposed on grants given to those seeking to improve public facilities, preventing them from under-cutting private sports facility providers in the same locales.

An audit of these facilities is required, with the wider public made fully aware of what is and is not available in every area. However, I suspect the real issue, particularly in Jim's case, is that the call for improved facilities is simply down to not seeing youngsters playing sport in sufficient numbers.

The real issue lies not with buildings, but with attitudes which allows sport in state schools to be treated as either a luxury or, worse still, an inconvenience, when so much evidence relating to whole child welfare is telling us it should be way up the list of priorities.

A new First Minister leading a reshuffled cabinet in a post-Commonwealth Games environment may offer the chance to look at things differently. If they are minded to do so they should consider that, whether or not the two men have identified the right problem, both Gran and Craig have contributed greatly to Scottish sport and are not just complaining for the sake of it.