IAN Ure had many fine qualities as a player which enabled him to enjoy a lengthy and successful career with Dundee, who he helped win the Scottish title and reach the European Cup semi-final, Arsenal and Manchester United as well as Scotland.
But it took attending the 1960 European Cup final between Eintracht Frankfurt and the fabled Real Madrid side of that era along with another 127,620 spellbound spectators at Hampden to give the teenage Ure the jolt that he needed to realise his enormous potential.
Watching Alfredo Di Stefano, Francisco Gento and Ferenc Puskas weave their magic as the Spaniards recorded a 7-3 victory in that now legendary encounter was a definite turning point for him. “I realised I had been playing at it up until then,” he once told me. “It made me really knuckle down and apply myself.”
It would be quite wrong to suggest that Kieran Tierney has been coasting along in a similar manner up until this point. You don’t establish yourself as a first team regular at a club like Celtic and force you way into the Scotland side by the age of 19 without dedicating yourself wholly to your chosen vocation.
Having natural talent can take you an awful long way in the game. However, to win trophies, compete in the Champions League group stages and perform at international level, as Tierney has, you have to be completely devoted, as Tierney clearly is.
It is to be hoped, however, that being involved in the Russia 2018 qualifier against England at the weekend will have driven home to the youngster, who only turned 20 last week, that there is ample room for improvement and that he still has some distance to go to reach the pinnacle of his profession.
Tierney, who was chosen on the left side of a three man backline by his manager Gordon Strachan, had a decent enough outing in difficult circumstances. Marcus Rashford, selected wide on the right by Gareth Southgate, was certainly ineffectual against him before he was eventually replaced.
But could the left back have done better at the opening England goal? Ryan Giggs, the former Wales winger, and Kevin Gallacher, the ex-Scotland striker, were both working as television pundits at the match and they certainly thought so. The pair singled him out for criticism after the Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain strike.
It wasn’t the only occasion Tierney was at fault. Harry Kane managed to turn him and get a shot away – which, mercifully, soared over its intended target - after latching onto an Eric Dier chip into the Scotland penalty area during the first half.
Now, this isn’t apportioning blame for the result on the defender. To reiterate, he had another fine game at the weekend. Indeed, he was probably one of his country’s better performers.
Scotland would have fallen behind during the first half after his club mate Craig Gordon had rashly headed the ball straight to Kane had it not been for his astute reading of the game. He was perfectly positioned to nod the resultant shot off his own goal line.
His showing came, it should be remembered, just a fortnight after he had to leave the field in the William Hill Scottish Cup final after suffering a serious mouth injury.
But being exposed to players like Dele Alli, Kane, Adam Lallana, Oxlade-Chamberlain and Raheem Sterling, renowned stars at Barclays Premier League clubs Spurs, Liverpool, Arsenal and Manchester City, will have underlined that he still has some way to go both technically and physically.
Tierney has been linked with lucrative moves to a top flight club down south since emerging and Brendan Rodgers revealed last month that he had turned down a multi-million pound bid shortly after being appointed Celtic manager last summer. He is more than capable, should he so desire, of plying his trade in that league at some stage in the future now.
Still, he has some rough edges to smooth out in his game. Rodgers is well aware of this and in the Irishman, who spent many years as a youth coach before moving into the dugout at senior game, he has the perfect man to help him do so.
The Isle of Man-born player has what it takes to be the outstanding Scottish footballer of his generation and potentially even one of his adopted homeland’s all-time greatest players in the years to come.
But his final run-out of the 2016/17 campaign will have shown him that he can’t afford to get carried away with his progress to date and emphasised the need to keep applying himself as diligently as he has been.
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