BURIED deep in a cupboard, drawer or cardboard box amongst sundry other keepsakes from a career at the sharp end of football is the ill-fated maroon third jersey which Shaun Maloney wore in Tbilisi in October 2007. The 32-year-old’s memories of that night might also be located somewhere in the darkest depths of his sub-consciousness. But Georgia is most definitely on his mind.

The 2-0 defeat which Alex McLeish’s side suffered to Klaus Toppmoller’s supposedly ramshackle outfit is not a match which will be writ large in the history of Scottish football when the final volumes are written but it is one which nonetheless remains traumatic for all who remember it. It is also a huge part of the reason why Shaun Maloney decided to give up on his American dream. The 32-year-old lasted just two months of his new life in Chicago before deciding that one last crack at guiding Scotland to a major finals, and one last attempt at British football, namely guiding Hull City back to the Barclays Premier League, required his undivided attention.

Scotland, you may recall, were in the midst of their most successful qualifying campaign this century, having beaten France home and away, when their Georgian assignment came around. Without the likes of Scott Brown, Alan Hutton and Lee McCulloch due to injury – perhaps the looming prospect of an Old Firm match the following weekend had something to do with that – this was a strangely off-colour Scotland and a Georgian side featuring two 17-year-olds and 16-year-old showed no mercy. The result left Scotland needing a win, rather than a draw, against world champions Italy at Hampden to qualify, a feat which they were agonisingly unable to achieve.

While Maloney chuckles about talk of “banishing the demons” of that night, and has long since moved on, it is at least a warning from history. Scotland fans with long memories see the former Soviet State as the kind of banana skin which our teams have often slipped upon in the past, but this is a different Scotland side and a different Georgia.

“I started the game in Georgia and it was a really difficult night, a really poor performance from the team,” said Maloney. “And it is performances and results like that, which are buried somewhere deep in my mind, which are part of the motivation to try to actually go that step further.

“I still have the maroon jersey somewhere but I don’t know where,” he added. “I don’t have it hanging on the wall or anything! I don’t remember that getting the blame though - it was more the players than the jersey.

“We were brilliant in that group. The team was pretty settled, although there were quite a few players missing for that Georgia match. We’ve played them since so I wouldn’t say it’s banishing demons - it’s just a huge opportunity. There’s no looking back to the previous game. It’s all about getting that one step closer to France.

“They were very good that night. We didn’t deserve anything from the match. It was so disappointing. But it was such a long time ago, maybe that’s why I don’t feel like I’m going back to some kind of historical place. It’s about what this group has done in this campaign, because not many would have even been involved that night.

“This is why we all want to go to big championships. It is so long since we have. There is a big hunger to get back there. I don’t think it’s a must win. We need to be respectful to Georgia. But it’s one we really want to win and it would be really important for us.”

Many different factors contributed to the 32-year-old’s decision to swap the glamour of Chicago for his new life in Hull. Some of them were personal, others professional, while the travelling was certainly a lot simpler to report for international duty this time around. Maloney has been the spark for Scotland in this campaign, but results didn’t go well for the Chicago Fire’s franchise player in the MLS. He wants to maximise his opportunities at both club and international level and wasn’t prepared to take any chances.

“The travel was a lot less than the previous time, that’s for sure,” said Maloney. “I think I was trying to convince myself it was going to be easier than it was. It was a difficult conversation to have with the owner. But I have to say he was great.

“There were various reason behind it but from a professional point of view the national team was a big importance,” he added. “It’s a huge year for the national team and I want to be a part of it.

“Part of that means being at 100% in training and in matches,” he added. “If that wasn’t the case then not only would I be letting myself down, but I’d hate to think at some point I’d let someone else down. As you get older you start to realise that things don’t last, you don’t have endless campaigns.

“I didn’t think my standards were slipping. Just, in the end, when I look at the national team I would have found it very difficult to have done that much travelling and be at my very best. I still want to achieve something in British football as well, still want to play in the Premier League and these are real motivations. Once I’d spoken to the manager at Hull [Steve Bruce] these motivations were magnified even more.”