IT is four years this month since James Keatings took a seat on the Celtic bench for the first time - at Tynecastle of all places - and wondered what the future had in store for him.
Little did he suspect that the answer would be a snapped cruciate, a painful period of rehabilitation and a couple of wilderness years working his way back to the big time.
That wide-eyed 18-year-old, a prolific member of the Parkhead club's Under-19 squad who was dreaming of emulating James Forrest and following him into Neil Lennon's first team, is now 22 and part of Robbie Neilson's young Hearts team who go into today's Scottish Cup fourth-round tie hoping to obliterate Celtic's hopes of a domestic treble.
It is, of course, no easy feat to establish yourself with the Parkhead club, particularly up front. Of Keatings' near contemporaries in the Lennoxtown system, he can name only Forrest and Lewis Toshney, the centre-half now reinventing himself at Ross County, as those who came through as first envisaged. Some accuse the Parkhead club of stunting players' development by keeping hold of them too long; others of providing a lack of opport-unities amid a revolving door of unconvincing big-money buys such as Mo Bangura, Morten Rasmussen, Teemu Pukki and Amido Balde.
Whatever the truth, there is no bitterness on Keatings' part. Indeed, he remains grateful that the club were prepared to offer him a four-year deal whilst he was laid low with his cruciate injury, and immensely thankful for the medical and moral support he received during that period.
But, after a cameo appearance from the bench last week in the league win against Rangers, rest assured he won't be holding back should he get on the scoresheet this afternoon. Life has taught this Glaswegian to savour every moment of footballing satisfaction.
"I'll definitely celebrate if I score," said Keatings. "I celebrate every goal no matter who it's against. I treat every goal as if it's my last - that's just the type of player I am.
"The season I was about to break through I was on the bench at Tynecastle for Celtic but it wasn't long afterwards that I snapped my cruciate. That season I was at my best in the Under 19s and was looking forward to getting in about the first team. Neil Lennon told me I was there or thereabouts. But the injury came along and it was a serious one. It came at a bad time for me but these things happen in football.
"I signed a three-year contract a couple of weeks after I did my cruciate, so I did have that time to get back. But it took me a year to get back on the training pitch. That's a long time out. Having been there for such a long time, from when I was 10, I was holding on to that. But it got to the stage where a decision had to be made. I had to try somewhere else and Hamilton gave me that opportunity. It led me here, so it's all good."
Life after Celtic isn't always bad, as the likes of David Marshall and Andy Robertson are proving in Scotland colours. After loan spells at St Johnstone then Hamilton, Keatings was picked up by the Tynecastle club on the strength of 15 goals in 33 starts as Hamilton won promotion via the play-offs, even if Jason Scotland and Mickael Antoine-Curier squeezed him out of the run-in.
"I never played with Andy, he was younger than me, but I remember him," said Keatings. "But they are the guys I look up to now, the ones who have left Celtic and made a good career for themselves. I feel I can follow their example."
The last two meetings between these two sides on cup duties aren't auspicious for Hearts. At this stage last year, Gary Locke's side shipped seven goals to Celtic at Tynecastle and a further three goals without reply were surrendered in a strange League Cup game at Parkhead in October. Hearts haven't lost since.
"I came on in that game and we actually had good chances, including a penalty and Jamie Walker hit the crossbar," said Keatings, who hits a mean dead ball, but has Osman Sow and Soufian El Hassnouai to fend off for a striking berth. "It would have been a different game if those had gone in. So we're confident we can do something on Sunday - it's not like we're going into it thinking we'll get turned over. That League Cup game gave us motivation because the feeling of defeat isn't nice. The manager told us not to have that feeling again."
Speaking of the manager, there is something in the studied, method-ical manner in which Neilson goes about things which brings to mind Ronny Deila at Celtic.
"Right at the start of the season, we said the league is the priority, then it's the Scottish Cup, then the League Cup and then the Petrofac in that order," said Neilson. "I spoke to Ronny after the last game, and I get on well with him, he speaks a lot of sense. What he is trying to do is great. It's a huge a club to turn around and it takes time, but you can see the way he is trying to get the guys to play. I guess there are similarities between us, in getting the guys to be as fit as they can be and giving them the responsibility to do it."
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