Snodgrass has struck gold but it was Moore who put wayward Robert on the right track
WHEN Robert Snodgrass took his career transfer fees to £20 million and penned a three-and-ahalf year deal worth £65,000-a-week to break into the English elite’s top ten at West Ham, the grounded Scotland international might have thought back to where his wayward life was exactly a decade ago.
As it happens, he had no choice as the reminder came looking for him. Allan Moore phoned, badgering the 29-year-old for a signed jersey to auction at a charity function in Glasgow last night. His former Stirling Albion boss was on to Snodgrass in need of a favour.
Moore required the help of Snodgrass ten years ago, too, when ‘chancing my arm’ to sign him from Livingston on loan. And so it proved as the teenager tucked home two goals to promote part-time Albion to the second tier four months later.
However, that little episode had a more enduring impact on the career of Scotland’s latest £10m footballer than it did on Moore and Albion. The man who handed him his senior debut at Livingston, Allan Preston, has admitted that the stint at Stirling might well have dictated whether Snodgrass was going to be a footballer — or be lost to the game, such were his issues with attitude, timekeeping and bad company.
Three multi-million pound moves in England from Leeds, Norwich and Hull, 21 Scotland caps and 19 Premier League goals later, it seems that the switch, born of a desperation to find the right path in life for an unruly potential star, was inspired.
‘I don’t think he got on with John Robertson at Livingston and, with him being a striker, that surprised me,’ said Moore. ‘I’d heard through the grapevine he might be available and I said to give us him for six months, he could maybe do with it.
‘I think when he came in to us, he was in turmoil. His head was being turned by hanging out with the wrong people. He had been labelled the next best thing for Scotland a couple of years earlier and wasn’t getting there. He was a typical Glasgow boy from the east end, where I used to have a flat, and I got on really well with him. I think that worked in our favour.’
Snodgrass had, as the BBC report stated on announcing the transfer on January 31, 2007, ‘gone from Barcelona trialist to being loaned to Stirling Albion in the space of a month’. From the highs of helping Scotland to the Under-19 European Championship final in Poland in the summer of 2006 and discussions over a trial for Barcelona, he started 2007 down the divisions as a Forthbank part-timer.
The bustling forward made his debut for Albion against Peterhead, scored five times in 14 games then faced a two-legged play-off against Airdrie for a place in Division One. He did not perform anything like the talent who had netted twice against Rangers in the top flight for Livi 20 months earlier. Albion could only draw the home leg 2-2.
‘I’ll always remember tearing into him after he had a stinker in that game,’ said Moore. ‘He hardly kicked a ball. I said: “You’re supposed to be the superstar in our team, where were you?”. I expected more of him. To be fair to him, he apologised and promised to repay me in the second leg. We were two up within 20 minutes and he scored both goals. ‘I think he took a lot of joy from scoring those goals and helping the club to promotion, so I think Stirling was something of a turning point. We were challenging for the league, playing good football. I’ve read him crediting me with changing things a bit for him. But if anyone deserves credit, it’s him.’ Moore, who nurtured current Southampton ace and England cap Jay Rodriguez through a Stirling loan a year later, loves watching Snodgrass in top-class action for club and country because the throwback skills and style have not changed greatly. ‘He’s not terribly different,’ said Moore. ‘Same hard-working boy with a great left peg. He always had that free-kick. With Stirling, I just said to him to play a free role. He was that versatile and that good. Even at that age, he had a wand of a left foot.
‘He always had that banter in him. He’d be in asking: “Alright gaffer, what you up to tonight?”. That’s what made him appealing to so many people. Fame and money can turn heads. It never has done with him.
‘We’ve always kept in contact and, speaking to him through his awful injury, what impresses me most is coming back from that. It takes a lot of guts and determination.
‘He had enough money to retire but fought back and got the big move to West Ham. That has to be a dream come true.’
‘STIRLING WAS A TURNING POINT FOR HIM. I THINK WHEN HE CAME TO US HE WAS IN TURMOIL’