Have goals will travel
After playing in every Scottish senior ground, born survivor Buchanan just keeps scoring
THERE is sometimes a moment just before he puts the ball in the net when he has time to think. ‘It just comes into my mind. I wonder why I am all alone. Why am I the only one at the back post when that is the only place the ball could be going?’
The words are from Liam Buchanan. The thoughts are those of a goalscorer. At 32, the striker has played in all four Scottish divisions, being an influential part of teams that have won Championship, League One and League Two titles. He has played at every senior ground in Scotland. He has scored in every division, adding as a flourish an Irish title with Sligo Rovers.
He is a crucial part of the Livingston side that has won the League One title. He is a striker of technique and instinct. He is a footballer of passion.
‘Winning and losing probably now means more to me than ever,’ he says. ‘I celebrate goals in training. And I bemoan my misses. It means a lot to me. That spark is still there. That passion has not died. You know, it might be that in the last few years it has become more intense.’
He started playing on what he describes as ‘the triangle’ at Lochend in Edinburgh, a patch of grass where he learned the lessons that have served him so well over the years.
‘I loved scoring goals as a kid,’ he says. He has enjoyed it too with Hearts youths, Cowdenbeath, Partick Thistle, Dunfermline Athletic, Sligo Rovers, Airdrie United, Ayr United, East Fife, Alloa Athletic and now Livingston.
He has never counted them and the statistics are variable and thus unreliable. ‘I think I am heading towards 200 in my senior career,’ he says of a season in which he has scored 25 so far for Livingston.
Buchanan is thus an expert in the art of hitting the net and the equally difficult talent of surviving in football.
First, the art. ‘There is a knack about getting into the right places. The body seems to take you there naturally. But you get better at it, especially finishing. I still work after training with our goalkeeper, Liam Kelly, and I know you can always improve your finishing. I have this season.’
The feeling of the ‘triangle’ has never left him down the years, through the leagues over scores of pitches. ‘There is a gut instinct,’ he explains.
‘For example, if there is a long ball and then a flick on, I am always surprised at how much room I may have. It is the same with crosses. I am at the back post and it is a tap in so why am I alone?’
He has made his living in the penalty box ever since he was released by Hearts as a youngster 15 years ago. ‘They only kept Christophe Berra from that youth team,’ he says. ‘But I was determined to keep playing at the best level I could.’
There is no secret as to how this ambition was fulfilled. He is the acme of the talent for survival. Buchanan scored goals and he worked hard. ‘The two are related,’ he says. ‘I am passionate about my football. I want to put everything into it.’
He enjoys being full-time at Livingston. ‘No disrespect to the guys who are part-time but I want to train when I am fresh, work on my finishing afterwards,’ he says.
He has always looked after his diet, even more so now as sports science becomes more developed. He has now dedicated himself to a weight training programme that he believes has helped him in injury prevention and recovery.
‘The game has changed in that there is more knowledge about how to keep fit and manage your body,’ he says. ‘But there have always been good pros and I have learned from them. Ian McCall, my manager at Partick Thistle, was always very encouraging. Alan Archibald was there as a player then and he was an example. He didn’t have to say much to you, it was just about how he carried himself on and off the park.’
Buchanan tries to help the youngsters he works alongside. ‘Matthew Knox is a terrific talent,’ he says of the 17-year-old striker. ‘If he sees me working extra sessions on my finishing, then there is an incentive for him to join in.’
He admits the football world has changed in one aspect. ‘I read Malky Mackay’s comments about the young players and a lot of what he says is true,’ says Buchanan of the SFA performance director’s concerns over application or the lack of it among youngsters.
‘With social media, they want to look like players rather than be players. There is not the appetite with some youngsters to work hard or do extra stuff.
‘This is a hard, physically demanding game and this is a tough division. You need to do everything you can just to survive. At Livingston, we are the full-time club and other teams see us as a team to beat. You need to have guts, fitness and ability to overcome that.’
He is reluctant to look back over his career, as if any such reflection would indicate that the end was nigh. ‘I honestly believe the best is yet to come,’ he says. ‘If you look at Kenny Miller at Rangers, who is 37, and Jermain Defoe at Sunderland who is 34, it is obvious that a striker can have a long career. My sharpness is good, my finishing is better and my fitness is excellent. I am looking to the future not the past.’
His contract is up in the summer so he may not yet know where he will play, but he is certain that he has ‘seasons’ left in the legs.
He indulges questions about the
best he has played against. ‘(Nikica) Jelavic at Rangers was top-class, a brilliant striker,’ he says. ‘But Victor Wanyama at Celtic was the best I played directly against. I just bounced off him. But he was also good on the ball.’
He also has enjoyed working with a series of managers. ‘It was a thrill for me to play for Cowdenbeath when Keith Wright and Micky Weir were the management team,’ he says with the relish of a Hibs supporter working for two Easter Road legends. This leads to a joyful digression.
‘Do you know that one of my best moments in football was not as a player?’ he says. ‘I am a Lochend boy so it was when Hibs won the Scottish Cup.
‘We played Rangers a couple of weeks before the final and I felt they were just not quite at it. They had won the league early and had time almost to kill before the final and that blunts the edge, whoever you are. I went to Hampden that day thinking it could happen.’
It did. ‘The only way I can describe it is as sheer elation,’ he says.
‘I ended up at the party at Easter Road. I know Stokesy (Anthony Stokes), so he got me in. But I am friendly with a few Hibs players. Darren McGregor played with me at Cowdenbeath and it’s great to see how he has come on.’
Was there any regret that he was there as a fan and not a player?
‘Never,’ he says. ‘I have fulfilled my dream. I wanted to play at the highest level possible when I was running about the triangle. I have always put in my best and it is not over yet.
‘The experience at Easter Road was not tinged with anything negative. It was just joy. It was great to touch the trophy. It sort of felt like a player in a funny way but then I realised it was great just to be a fan and to be able to experience such a day.’
It is no less than a passionate football man deserved. Liam Buchanan in the right place at the right time yet again.