It was just an ordinary playing field near his home in East Kilbride, but it was where, on cold Saturday mornings in the early 1970s, he discovered he loved football, and football loved him.
Almost 40 years later, just down the road from that small pitch, McCoist is having a boisterous kickaround with a gang of girls and boys from some of the town’s schools. He’s clearly in his element playing around with the kids, but he’s here for another reason: to officially open a sports centre that bears his name.
After unveiling the official plaque of the Alistair McCoist Complex, he talks about how proud he is and about how proud his mum, who still lives in the town, will be, but he also talks fondly about the town and what it has meant, and still means, to him as a footballer.
“I started playing here when I was nine and I can’t tell you how special those days were to me and a lot of my pals,” he says.
“It was a wonderful part of my life. I remember it like it was yesterday. Sometimes it would be absolutely freezing but the main thing you remember was the sport itself and running about playing with your pals.”
McCoist began his career with St Johnstone before moving to Sunderland in 1981. He returned to Scotland two years later and signed for Rangers, where he became the club’s record goal
scorer, with 355 goals.
Now Rangers’ assistant manager, the 47-year-old hopes that the centre could spot another little Ally, that the town could feed professional football, but he also hopes it will encourage children to use their foot on a ball a bit more rather than their thumbs on a PlayStation.
“The biggest thing I would hope for this place would be to get the kids away from the PlayStations, Gameboys and TVs and get them playing sports.”
He admits achieving that is not going to be easy. “I’ve got five boys myself and it’s a problem. If I didn’t get them outside they would sit and play their PlayStations. It’s the way society is, it’s the way they are. It’s something we have to accept.
“We won’t change that but what we have to do is make sure it doesn’t take up all their time and they are taking exercise, and there’s no better exercise than playing sports.”
McCoist believes something special happens in places like this: yes, people get fit, but they also, he says, form bonds and relationships for life. Certainly, that’s the way it’s been with him. He still has mates in the town and twice a week he still comes here to play a game of five-a-side with his pals.
It’s not all about football though, he says. The £3.5 million centre has great facilities for the game, but also hosts a string of other sports. It hosted the Scottish and regional netball squads and, in February, will be the venue for a Scotland versus Australia netball match.
There are also regular clubs for handball, basketball, badminton, table tennis and martial arts. The focus this year will be to increase day-time classes aimed at pre-school children and their parents.
South Lanarkshire Council’s Jim Docherty said he was happy to have McCoist’s name in lights at the centre.
“We are delighted to welcome Ally here today to officially open the Alistair McCoist Complex, named in his honour as a great ambassador for Scottish football and one of East Kilbride’s local heroes,” he said.
“The complex greatly enhances the leisure facilities for the town of East Kilbride and this £3.5m investment has presented a fantastic opportunity for local residents to enjoy many sports within this multifunctional sports hall.”
Once the official handshakes and plaque unveiling is over, McCoist says he’ll be popping round to visit a friend who lives nearby.
East Kilbride sometimes gets a bit of stick as an identikit suburb but, for McCoist, it’s still a family place. “My old man will be looking down today,” he says. “Looking down with a smile on his face.”
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