Evening Telegraph (First Edition)
Rise to the top has been anything but easy
BY his own admission, man of the moment Lawrence Shankland is living the dream.
Scoring goals for fun for Dundee United in the Championship and notching his first in the dark blue of Scotland last night will do that to a man.
That he is enjoying life on the pitch right now is evident. As the ball nestled in the back of the net for Scotland’s fourth in a 6-0 win over San Marino last night, the 24-year-old was left grinning from ear to ear as he wheeled away in celebration – after first making sure he wasn’t adjudged offside.
And it is hard not to share such joy with him as his rise to the top has not been straightforward.
Starting out as a kid as Queen’s Park alongside Scots skipper and now-Liverpool star Andy Robertson, the pair have trodden very different paths to find themselves in the starting XI for the national team. While Robertson raced through the ranks at the Glasgow amateurs, Dundee United and Hull before becoming a Champions League winner and one of the top leftbacks in the world at Liverpool, Shankland almost dropped out of full-time football completely.
A move to Aberdeen didn’t quite work out for “Shanks”, despite decent l oan spells at Dunfermline and St Mirren.
Considering going part-time or giving up the game altogether, he was handed a lifeline by Ayr United manager Ian McCall. The rest, as they say, is history.
With a qualifying double-header next month against Cyprus and Kazakhstan, Shankland now looks very likely to be involved, fitness permitting.
Certainly, if he keeps banging in the goals at his current rate for United, he will be hard to resist, not just for Steve Clarke but other potential suitors, too.