IN seven seasons at Celtic Park, Michael McGovern never made a single first-team appearance.

But that didn't stop the 30-year-old goalkeeper, who returns there today in the colours of Hamilton Accies, becoming something of a curio in the history of the Parkhead club.

Not only did he acquire two Scottish Cup winners medals without making it off the bench, he cost Neil Lennon's Celtic the chance of another one with a clean sheet at Hampden in the colours of Ross County one famous day in April 2010, while his last visit to the East End of Glasgow, back in October, another clean sheet helped Hamilton take the scalp of Celtic for the first time since 1938.

It might not exactly have panned out for him at Parkhead, or during a brief spell at Dundee United under Craig Levein, but since then McGovern has been a slow burning success story in the Scottish game. First came the business of quietly proving his worth at club level, albeit in the lower divisions. Now, as one of just two ever presents in the Hamilton team, he has become established as part of Michael O'Neill's brave new dawn with the Northern Ireland international team, albeit vying with St Johnstone's Alan Mannus for a place in the pecking order beneath former Manchester United stopper Roy Carroll. Few would grudge him a second run out for his country at Hampden as they prepare for their biggest match in years, against Mixu Paatelainen's Finland, next month.

"Although Roy is the No 1 I feel I can give him a challenge," said McGovern. "I'd hope the manager would think of a change for the Scotland game. It would be great to be involved in. I've been in Scotland for so long now and with it being at Hampden that would be nice. But he won't give it on sentiment."

Equally curious is the fact that McGovern, Carroll and fellow internationals Kyle Lafferty and Andrew Little all hail from Enniskillen, that county town of just 14,000 people which gained notoriety when being the site of a Provisional IRA bomb blast on Remembrance Day in 1987, which killed 11 and wounded many more. Considering the size of the town, it is quite a return, and McGovern - who was three when the bomb went off - feels that football has helped in some way to bring the community together.

"I don't have too many memories of when the bomb went off but it's obviously hung over the town," said McGovern. "It's notorious when people ask you where you're from - when they hear the name. It is a bit like Omagh, which isn't too far away from us.

"It was a tragic event, one of many unfortunately," he added. "But we're at peace now... nearly. It's been brilliant since the mid-Nineties. Football is a big part of the community, where I'm from it's huge. It's the thing everyone plays and it is good to bring things together.

"There is a lot of segregation, to be honest. You've got Catholic teams and Protestant teams but, especially when I was growing up there were more integrated schools, and it does bring people to mix more. So it was a big help. But where I am from was kind of sheltered from the troubles compared to Belfast or Derry. It's a nice wee country town and although there was that hanging over you there was no way in the Nineties it was a release to get away. Maybe it was in the Seventies."

Who tends the opposite goal on March 26 at Hampden is also open to question. It has been quite a week in the life of Craig Gordon, the Celtic goalkeeper following up a superb instinctive double stop at St Johnstone with a real howler against Internazionale in midweek, but McGovern feels his old Celtic pal David Marshall deserves to keep hold of the shirt in the meantime.

"David has done so well for Scotland that it would be very harsh on him to be taken out the team," said McGovern. "Obviously Cardiff got relegated last year but he was one of the top goalkeepers in the Premier League in England and I think that has been recognised. He has come into the Scotland team, and hasn't done anything wrong. Everything he has done has been positive so he is in control of the jersey but he is facing challenges from Allan McGregor and Craig Gordon.

"Allan is at the top of his game down in the Premiership in England, and Craig has been better than good in my opinion - he is the signing of the season," McGovern added. "Obviously Fraser Forster went for £9m a few years ago but to get someone like that in for a free is an incredible piece of business. All credit to Stevie Woods because he would have had a big say in getting him in. At the time there wasn't a manager, the manager was changing over, so I think Stevie had a big say in it."

As for that historic victory at Celtic Park in August, courtesy of an Ali Crawford goal, McGovern cheefully rhymes off three better Hamilton performances this season, but he nonetheless regards it as the finest result of the season. "It was a good day, one of the highlights of the season," he said. "It sort of established us, put us on the map a little bit. I wasn't overly busy. I had three or four saves or something like that. But when you go to Celtic Park you are expecting the goalkeeper to have a really tough day and it wasn't like that."

Only now and then do what-might-have-beens of his time at Celtic creep into his memory. "I would like to have played first team," he said. "I was on the bench all the time. I played a few friendlies, Henrik Larsson's testimonial and a few friendlies and things like that. I was close to coming on a few times. But it was brilliant like. Apart from not playing it was amazing."