THE boy is eight-and-a-half now. It seems a pretty good age to be. Girls are still considered more annoying than alluring but other new things are gradually working their way into his life. He has an appointment with a tub of hair gel before school every morning, can play video games until his eyes turn blood red, while the success of a trip anywhere is now measured on whether it involved him eating hot dogs or not. As life plans go, there is a lot to be said to be for it.

And now, perhaps slightly belatedly, football has also crash-landed on his consciousness with a thud. What started out as a passing interest in trading Match Attax cards – the modern-day equivalent of the Panini sticker – has blossomed of late into a full-scale obsession with all aspects of the game. It is difficult not to feel both proud but also guiltily responsible at the same time.

A winter spent kicking a ball around has left the bottom end of the garden resembling a re-enactment of the Battle of the Somme but with extra mud. All that serves as additional practise for his Saturday morning run-around, where a team of knowledgeable and enthusiastic community coaches put a ragtag bunch of local kids of varying ages and talent through a series of drills before rounding things off with a game. The boy loves it, although his attempts at tackling suggest he is not yet aware of the Ray Wilkins mantra about the importance of “staying on your feet”.

He is just as enthusiastic about learning about the game. In between slurping down cereal and munching on toast, breakfast tends to revolve around questions about the previous night’s results, who scored, and what happened in the game. And luckily he can answer most of my queries. The modern child never wants for information and anything he cannot glean from his old da' can usually be found online, statistical nuggets which he can then seemingly process and store away like Rainman on a good day.

If there is a downside to any of this, it is that the bulk of his interest is in foreign rather than Scottish football. It is the same with his pals, most of whom turn up for the Saturday kick-about in Barcelona, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich or English strips. For the west of Scotland, the lack of Celtic and Rangers strips (the latter perhaps for other reasons) is quite surprising, although one or two St Mirren tops do still crop up from time to time and, rather boldly for Paisley, one kid in a Morton strip.

At his age, my favourite player was Kenny Dalglish. The boy’s is Lionel Messi, closely followed by Neymar, Robert Lewandowski, Manuel Neuer and Marco Reus. He would struggle to name a leading Scottish player either in our Premiership or operating down south, although, due to the power of persistent brainwashing, he knows to also name-check Stephen McGinn and Stevie Mallan whenever questioned on this matter.

At his age foreign football was as alien and inaccessible to most of us as travelling into space. Now, there are matches from all around the globe broadcast at all hours, and highlights shown online not long after. For a You Tube-raised generation who seem to lack the requisite attention to sit through 90 minutes of a match, being able to consume bite-sized highlight reels seems to fit their needs perfectly.

The worry for the guardians of the Scottish game must be that this childhood fascination with global stars ahead of local talent persists into the teenage years and then into their adult lives. If there is an entire generation growing up with little or no interest in Scottish football, who will be filling our stands in years to come? Will football simply become something that is observed on television rather than enjoyed in the flesh? And how do we stop that dystopian nightmare from becoming a reality?

Our domestic game, barring one or two exceptions at Celtic, lacks genuine star quality. The same can be said for the national team. Whose name would a young fan get on the back of a Scotland shirt these days? Not since James McFadden retired has the Tartan Army had a cult hero worthy of their devotion.

Football, though, is Scotland’s national game and that is never likely to change. That there was more interest on Thursday night in an under-17 cup final played behind closed doors then there was in a two-time Olympic medallist retaining his British swimming title in a record time says plenty about that state of affairs.

So, football should relish that status but never take it for granted. The governing bodies and our clubs have to continue to strive to make our game relevant, interesting and marketable to the youngest audience, to offer something that these pre-teen consumers cannot get from their You Tube channels or digital televisions. The hope, then, is that these potential supporters of the future start to develop more of an interest in the domestic game. It won't be easy but research suggests bigger hot dogs would be a good place to start.