Andy Ritchie delighted to be helping with Scotland's bid to reach the World Cup - at long last

If Ritchie, though, had been called upon to assist his country before the World Cup in Argentina some 40 years ago, as many at the time longed to see, it would have been a different story.

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The attacking midfielder, one of the most gifted, if mercurial, talents Scotland has ever produced, broke through at Cappielow in 1976 and was soon delighting fans and earning rave reviews.

Ally MacLeod, the then national manager, was one of those who was impressed by the pudgy playmaker with the thick mop of curly hair and wand of a right foot.

“I was doing well,” said Ritchie. “I had scored a few goals. It started to be suggested that there might be the possibility of an international cap.

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“Ally MacLeod got in touch and told me he was going to try and get me into the Home Internationals squad. He said that if I kept on scoring he would take me to Argentina with him. Then he ran into a problem.

“The SFA wouldn’t sanction a call-up for a part-time player at a First Division club. They felt it would look bad if I didn’t play full-time football. I worked in the Glasgow meat market and delivered butcher meat.

“I spoke to Ally three or four times about it. He told me: ‘If you get yourself a move to a sexier club I can pick you’. But this was all pre-Bosman of course.”

Ritchie remained at Morton and Scotland departed for South America without him. Does he think things would have turned out differently if he had been involved? “Nah, Kenny Dalglish and Joe Jordan played up front,” he said. “That wasn’t bad was it?”

Yet, Ritchie’s star continued to rise and MacLeod’s successor Jock Stein, who he worked under during the time he spent at Celtic as a youngster, handed him a chance the following year.

“I had scored around 25 goals before a European Championship qualifier against Belgium at the Heysel,” he said. “There was pressure on Jock to include me because I was well ahead of everyone in the goalscoring charts.

“We flew to Brussels - and then Jock informed me that I would go with the under-21s as an overage player, which you could do at that time. When we arrived back in Glasgow Jock and I had words with him about it.

"I felt I had been belittled. It was silly. I didn’t behave very well. I should have taken the cotton wool out of my ears and stuck it in my mouth. I picked an argument with somebody I couldn’t win against. He never picked me again.

“I finished the season well, scored 30 odd goals and won the European Silver Boot. Only Paolo Rossi scored more than me. I won the Scottish Football Writers’ Player of the Year award. But I never got a full cap.”

Ritchie did actually go to a World Cup, just not as a player. He travelled to West Germany with two friends in 1974 to watch Scotland as a supporter. The trip was to prove a life-changing experience.

“We stayed near the Scotland base,” he said. “Brazil were using the same training ground. I went to watch them every day. I watched Scotland in the morning and Brazil in the afternoon.

“It was the first time I had ever seen mannequins used for a defensive wall. After training, Rivellinho and Jairzinho spent 40 minutes taking free-kicks. They got a big bag of balls and bent them round the wall. I thought: ‘I’m going to try that!’ I went back to Celtic and practised and practised. It seemed to work alright.”

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It did indeed. The Idle Idol spent seven seasons tormenting defences across Scotland, scoring 133 goals in the process, before his career petered out and ended when he was just 28. He spent a long time after that battling his demons - anxiety, depression, gambling, drinking and drug taking - before cleaning up and turning his life around.

Now 60, he is the picture of health, in good spirits and enjoyable company over a coffee. Having worked as a scout for, among others, Aston Villa, Celtic and Manchester City, he is the ideal man to aid Strachan, McGhee and Andy Watson.

You would have imagined, however, the former Aberdeen trio would never have wanted to set eyes on Ritchie, the scourge of the Pittodrie club in his heyday, again. Sir Alex Ferguson certainly remembers the damage he inflicted on his team.

“A good few years ago now, I was in the boardroom at Southampton having a cup of tea after a game when I was scouting for Villa,” he said. “Fergie was being interviewed on the television.

“David Beckham had scored a great goal. Fergie said: ‘Ach, I saw that when I was in Scotland. There was a guy up there called Andy Ritchie who used to score goals like that all the time’. I was tempted to turn to the guy next to me and say: ‘That’s me he’s talking about!’”