Ikechi Anya, Scotland's manna from Hampden

As recently as a month ago, the diminutive Watford winger, an exotically named native of Castlemilk, could have remained incognito if he had retraced those same steps. But a memorable display on his first start for his country in Macedonia - the 25-year-old scored a fine goal and tormented his marker all night long - ensured the Tartan Army had found a miniature messiah.

"It was a good result in Macedonia and I have had a lot of support," Anya said. "Nowadays social media is a big thing and I have had a lot of positive messages on Twitter. It seems every person who stops me in the street comes from Castlemilk."

At the end of a week where the shifting sands of international allegiance have been making headlines courtesy of England's pursuit of the Brussels-born Manchester United player Adnan Januzaj, it is worth reminding ourselves that Scottishness has always been a key component in Anya's identity.

Born in Glasgow to a Nigerian father and a Romanian mother and raised on a Castlemilk council estate, Anya recalls crying in the car as he left Scotland as a seven-year-old. Parental reasoning was sound, however: his father, Dr Chinasa Anya, was subject of a big transfer from Strathclyde University to a top lecturing post at Oxford.

It was in those genteel surroundings that Anya thrived, along with his older brother Chima, who is both a GP and a budding hip hop artist. "He is a fully qualified GP so he doesn't get much spare time, but when he does he likes to devote it to his music," Anya said.

Perhaps as a result of his Scottish roots, Ikechi chose association football over academia and recent times have seen the player reconnecting with his inner Scot. First, there was a trip to Glasgow with his brother in January, then during the international break in September his godparents Peter and Lesley Lucas took him back to the house where his early years were spent. He has also reached out to some old primary school friends.

"I remember when I was six or seven and I had to leave all my friends behind and I was crying in the car," he said. "But obviously when you are a kid it is easy to make friends. After a few months of being in England I adapted. It would have been nice to come back more often, because you are leaving a lot behind. But it is OK, because as of last year I have got back in contact with some of my old friends.

"My godparents live here and during the last break I went into Glasgow with them, they showed me where I lived and the school I went to," he added. "And I am getting familiar again with the terminology up here, certain words and things like that. I was drinking Irn-Bru all along. The diet version obviously."

Even within the global world of football, Anya's journey has been a path less travelled. Let go at one stage by Paul Lambert at Wycombe Wanderers, even plying his trade at one stage in the unedified surroundings of Halesowen Town in the British Gas Business Premier League, Anya's rehabilitation came when recommended by John Gorman for the Glenn Hoddle Academy in Spain. It set in train a chain of events which saw him grace both Cadiz and Granada before being brought to Vicarage Road. He still keeps in touch with Hoddle and Gorman, who attempted to bring him to Scotland's attention some five years earlier.

"A lot of people think he [Hoddle] just lent his name to the academy, but he was there 90% of the time," said Anya. "I went from there to the Sevilla academy and he said 'look, I'm going to try to let the Scotland Under-21s know about your eligibility'. I was like 'cool, fine'. I think I got an e-mail from Billy Stark, but nothing materialised."

Anya is deeply religious, humble to a fault and thankful for the good fortune which has come his way - even though he has done the hard yards himself. One stroke of good luck, however, was coming under the influence of another humble little legend of the world game in the form of current Watford manager Gianfranco Zola.

Suffice to say he was delighted that Sunderland appointed Gus Poyet, and not Zola, as their new manager this week. "Everybody knows what he [Zola] has achieved as a manager and a player," said Anya. "But his main quality is not speaking about his football achievements, it is just how humble he is. Sometimes he might lose his cool, but it is not for too long and he will probably end up apologising for shouting at us.

"We play wing backs and as much as he wants us to defend, he would rather a player lose the ball trying something than just to get by, hiding. I echo that sentiment. If he had left Watford it would have been a massive change. But I sort of knew he would stay so it was OK."

Typically positive, Anya brushed off any fears about injury as he arrived at the Scotland camp. ("We have been playing every Saturday and Tuesday since the last international break and I was feeling a bit tired towards the end," he said). Not even an investigation by FARE over the level of stick he received from the home fans in Skopje has put him off his stride.

"To be fair, as soon as we started the game it was quite a hostile environment," recalled Anya. "They were booing us straight away, but I wasn't sure if it was racially motivated, or just because we were dominating them in the first half and maybe they were trying just to put us off. I didn't really feel it was racially motivated.

"Sometimes it is too easy if you see a player of this colour and you hear the boos to say racism, but sometimes it is just their fans trying to intimidate us. I have experienced it a couple of times, though, when I was playing in Spain. Unless it was stonewall racism, I just let it slide and put it down to them trying to support their team."

On a much happier note, his mother's influence on Anya's career has already been repaid with the jersey he wore as he made his debut from the bench against Belgium. "The one from the Belgium game I gave to my mum and the white one I scored in I'm going to get framed as well when I move into my new house," he said.

If the start to his Scotland career is anything to go by, there should be many more. "My dad sent me a text before the Belgium game and said something like, 'the place you used to walk past as a boy to go to church you will now be playing in as a man'." Amen to that.