THE story goes that Aiden McGeady was bored and so to entertain himself began to play keepy-uppy with a tennis ball.

He was in the Highlands, playing a tournament with his local team, Queen’s Park, and it was his good fortune, or maybe planning, that the man bewitched by his tricks was Kenny McDowall, at the time Head of Youth Development at Celtic.

Very soon everybody in Scottish football had heard of this kid from Glasgow’s Southside. Folk would come to watch him play just to see how easy he found dribbling past much older boys who had no clue how to stop him.

McGeady would later estimate he went on trial 13 different times at Arsenal. Sir Alex Ferguson apparently took to phoning his house. But to McDowall’s great joy the little skinny kid who seemed born with a ball at his feet chose Celtic, which just so happened to be the team he supported.

“You only discover one Aiden McGeady in a generation,” said McDowall as his protégé was establishing himself as the most exciting prospect at Celtic for longer than anyone cared to remember.

And yet this was Roy Keane about the same player just this week.

“My reaction to Aiden’s performance? He can do a lot better but maybe that’s the story of Aiden’s career.”

Ouch.

That McGeady came into Keane’s firing line – after the Irish lost to Belarus - would have come as little surprise to anyone in Ireland. They have watched this player win 82 caps over 12 years and yet still cannot make up their mind about him.

Actually, that’s not quite true. Some have no doubts; most notably former player turned pundit Eamon Dumphy who just can’t see why there is any fuss over a winger who doesn’t score goals, provide any assists and finds it difficult to beat a man, which is supposed to be his forte.

McDowall predicted that McGeady at 30 would be on track to win 100 caps, who by the age of 24 would win every domestic trophy in Scotland, and then go onto make a fortune from a £12m move to Spartak Moscow and have a highlights package which makes him look like a word beater.

But what must he, and the many McGeady admirers, think of him now?

He flopped at Everton, was deemed not good enough to even be part of the Sheffield Wednesday squad for the Championship play-off last weekend and, when not being criticised by Keane, is currently looking for a new club.

So many questions.

Did his talent justify the hype? Was he ever really that good in the first place? Has he wasted his career? The answers are yes (mostly), yes (absolutely) and no (not really)

But McGeady has not become the player he could have been - it's time to take when you can't get a game for Sheffield Wednesday - and his best years really do seem to have come at Celtic, the club he left for Russia in 2010. Although this is hardly a tale of failure.

Since then he has made a right few bob from his tax-free years in Moscow. He owns property including shares in at least one restaurant in his home city. But he did okay in Russia, no more than that, and then Everton was supposed to be the perfect club for him.

McGeady was 28 when he moved to Goodison and a goal on the first day of the 2014/15 season, a lovely curled finish after a typical dribble, was really the one and only highlight.

McGeady still made Martin O’Neill squad for the European finals in France but there are many of the green army who have had enough of him. His last start came over a year ago. He is very lucky to have made the cut.

Against Belarus, after a bright start, he began to lose possession and misplace passes. This did not go unnoticed by the crowd. There were even a few boos directed at him. Some might even suggest this, as Keane said, sums up the career of Aiden McGeady. Good at the beginning and then it all goes a bit meh.

“I just think he’s got amazing talent, I don’t know what’s gone on with Sheffield Wednesday this year, for me he should have been lighting up the Championship,” said former Ireland winger Damien Duff when speaking to the Irish Examiner.

“I don’t know if it is injury problems, or he didn’t fit with the manager or what, but I’d love to see him go to France and do well, his ability is a dying breed. I love him to bits. Even in training every day, I thought I could dribble until I saw this kid, he’s just on another planet.”

McGeady will find a new team for next season – a move back to Celtic might tempt him – but it’s impossible to see an English Premier League side taking a chance on a man who half that league wanted to sign when he was 13.

The night he terrorised Fabricio Coloccini and more or less finished the defender’s career with AC Milan remain just about fresh. He was only a teenager at the time.

Then there was the evening at Parkhead when he beat Benfica on his own, he was superb in the 2009 League Cup win over Rangers, and for most of the 2007/08 season, on his day, he was unplayable.

So much talent and promise but his career hasn’t quite reached the heights his fans, and I include myself in that number, thought it would. McGeady may feel Irish and play for their national team – but his story is just so Scottish.