HOW LEIGH GRIFFITHS WENT FROM ZERO TO HERO:
FOR aspiring managers and coaches converging on Largs in the coming weeks, he would make a perfect case study in t he necessity of astute man-management.
Leigh Griffiths — a man who was described by Pat Fenlon, his manager at Hibernian manager, as ‘a pain in the a***’ just two weeks ago — is undoubtedly capable of putting years on you.
With 28 goals to his name so far this season, however, there are surely few bosses who would not now wish to put that to the test.
For all the enfant terrible of Easter Road has repeatedly claimed he is a new man, scrapes with authority just seem t o be part of his make-up.
Mercifully, however, the 22- year- old father of three has shown concrete evidence lately that his desire for his life to be splashed only across the back pages of newspapers is indeed heartfelt.
Where would his side have been without him this season? Much closer to the First Division, that’s for sure.
Not only has his individual goal return in a struggling side been remarkable — his commitment to the cause has been, too.
His mantelpiece if now groaning with recognition of his efforts. Already the winner of the PFA Scotland Young Player of the Year Award and the Clydesdale Bank Player of the Year Award, as of today, the Scottish Football Writers’ Player of the Year Award is now in his possession, too.
Griffiths has evidently managed to take a blinkered approach to off-field distractions. It’s not been easy, of course, and he’s not got there on his own either.
Asked what, or who, has helped him through the dark days, Griffiths revealed: ‘It was the manager and my big brother, Paul.
‘They’re the guys I go to if I’m in trouble. It’s really great to have somebody to talk to, especially if it’s your own flesh and blood. But the manager has been brilliant.
‘He’s told me that if I have any kind of problem, just to go and talk to him. He said there was no point in bottling it all up inside and the quicker it’s out in the open, the easier it is to solve.
‘If you’d said to me at the start of the season that I would get the PFA Young Player of the Year, the Clydesdale Bank SPL Player of the Year and now the Football Writers’ Player of the Year, I would have snapped your hand off in about eight pieces. It’s been a really great season and now I want to continue r i ght through these last two games.’
Whatever words of sage advice Fenlon and his elder sibling have had to offer, they have clearly worked. Standing on the verge of becoming the first Hibs player in 40 years to break the 30-goal barrier, a likely parting this summer will be painful.
Wolves, now preparing for life in League One after relegation from the Championship, are i n no position to discard a goalscorer of Griffiths’ ability. So, barring an extraordinary turn of events, his Easter Road odyssey will end at Hampden on May 26.
‘It’s a hard one,’ Griffiths added. ‘ I’m still with Wolves but I’m hoping to do everything I can to stay up the road with Hibs.
‘Obviously that’s not up to me. It’s up to the Hibs board and Wolves and I’ve just got to wait and see. If it happens, it happens, and if not, I’ll go back down the road and chance my luck.
‘I just have to put it out of my head, it’s going to be monumental next week, with all the build-up to the game. But I’ve still got my target, which is to score another two goals before the Cup Final and I want to do that on Saturday.
‘Half my family are Hibs fans and they’re really up for the Final, but I keep stressing to them that there’s still another game to go before that and it’s a good one to finish off with because it’s against my old club, Dundee.’
His nearest and dearest might be driving him to distraction as the big day approaches, but as a die-hard Hibernian fan, Griffiths knows the source of all the angst.
He’s forever indebted to them too — not just for standing by him i n times of trouble, but f or spotting the God-given talent early on and nurturing it.
‘My big brothers, Paul and Mark, and my dad, James, were the ones who always encouraged me when I was younger and told me to keep the head and do what I do best, which i s scoring goals,’ he explained.
‘It would really be them, because I’ve never looked up to players all that much. I just try to focus on my own game.
‘My dad and my brothers always encouraged me not to be afraid to try things on the pitch — they would tell me that if I fancied having a shot, then go for it.
‘The way they saw it was that you might get one chance in a game and if that’s going to be your only opportunity, then you just have to do the best you can with it. Thankfully, I took that advice (against Hearts) on Sunday and it ended up in the top corner.’
Fenlon kept Griffiths in reserve at Rugby Park on Wednesday and it’s likely his role against Dundee tomorrow will be minimal too.
Two goals shy of his target, his frustration at being omitted yet again would be understandable, yet so too would be his awareness of the bigger picture.
‘I’m hoping to play, of course,’ he said. ‘But if I’m not playing, I won’t be able to get to that figure.
‘Obviously, I wanted to play in the game (at Kilmarnock) but I can understand where the gaffer is coming from. He wants to rest my legs. I was disappointed, but not too disappointed, because I knew that the players who were going there would do the job — and they did just that.
‘The manager’s been bringing players in to see if they can do a job and the young l ads have embraced it, especially young Jordon Forster, who played two Under-20 games in a week and two games in defence for the first team, so he is someone who is making a case for the Final.
‘Wee Alex Harris has been flying and everybody has seen that in the games he has played. Then you’ve got Ross Caldwell, who came in against Hearts on Sunday, played really well and got a goal.’
Now a triple award winner, the small matter of settling a 111-year debt on Mount Florida on Sunday week, followed by a Scotland recall for the trip to Croatia on June 7, would finish off the season quite nicely.
The way Griffiths has gone about his business this season, you would bet against nothing.