IT was always Alan Forsyth’s dream to play for the English champions. To be top scorer and player of the year for two seasons running, a regular for the national team, too. And now he has done all that. Just not quite in the manner he had envisaged as a young boy growing up in Paisley. Another ball game got in the way.

“When I was a kid I loved playing football and even now I watch it all the time,” he says. “I wanted to be Ronaldo – but the Brazilian one. I had his strip and boots and I wanted to be him. I still love football. Even now I still think I could play for Man United. I’m waiting for Jose Mourinho to give me a call but I’m beginning to think it might not happen. Zlatan [Ibrahimovic] might be leaving so if they need a new number 9 I’m happy to step in!

“I played football at St Mirren until I was about 14. I then had to make a decision as I was also playing Scotland under-16 hockey. So I had to give up football. I had to write a letter to my coach saying I was quitting and it was probably one of the worst things I had to do when I was younger. But my hockey was going well and so I chose that path. And thankfully it’s worked out pretty well.”

Just a bit. Twenty years on from first picking up a stick at his local club, Kelburne, Forsyth is now one of Britain’s leading players. Son of the Scotland head coach, Derek, and brother of another international player, David, the 25-year-old has been part of the GB full-time set-up at Bisham Abbey since 2015. Given his goalscoring exploits with club side Surbiton, it was something of a shock when he was then left out of the squad that went to last year’s Olympics in Rio.

It evidently still irks him as he chats at the national hockey centre at Glasgow Green, but he is determined to put that disappointment to good use. Tokyo in 2020 is already circled on his long-term planner.

“That’s already at the back of my mind,” he says. “That’s why I go to training every day, to hopefully one day play in the Olympics and maybe get a gold medal. That’s in my head all the time. Rio is gone. There’s no point me thinking about it. I’m just using it as motivation to make sure I make it next time.”

There is plenty to fit in before then, however, most pressingly the World League 3 semi-finals that begin in London this week. This is uncharted territory for a Scotland side that will take on the might of India, the Netherlands, Pakistan and Canada aiming to hopefully make the quarter-finals to keep alive their aspiration of qualifying for next year’s World Cup.

The build-up has been far from ideal, however. With only negligible support from sportscotland, the men’s squad embarked on a crowdfunding mission ahead of the tournament, pulling together an impressive £12,000 in donations. Even then, it has not been enough. With the majority of the squad holding down full-time jobs elsewhere, training opportunities have been limited.

“We’re going into a tournament to play against some of the best players in the world on the back of just three training weekends,” Forsyth adds. “That’s not enough. You can’t go in with any expectation if you’re training for just six days together.

“People higher up want results but won’t put in the funding that will actually help that. I’m not saying money is everything but being able to train full-time together for longer will definitely bring about improvements. I’ve seen that first-hand myself.

“At the moment we’ve got good results without the training but we can always do better. I can’t imagine the Scottish rugby guys or the football team ever having doing to go out fundraising just to play in competitions. And that means we’re not focusing on the actual hockey which is what we should be doing.

“I personally feel we haven’t had the full support that we deserve. I don’t know why that is but even if you were to ask for answers you wouldn’t get any. I’d guess they would say financial reasons or because hockey doesn’t have a big enough profile. But I don’t think the governing bodies do enough to help raise that profile. It’s mostly come from the players. To support the men’s senior national team you would expect more than what’s been given.”

Playing against some of the best sides in the world is exciting but also difficult when you haven’t been given sufficient time to prepare. But Forsyth has a target in mind for Scotland.

“Just about every team we’ll be playing in this competition will have been training full time; certainly Pakistan, India and Holland. Canada maybe not but a lot of them play in Europe at full-time clubs. It’s a different world. When you train full-time you quickly see the difference that can make.

“But we want to make the quarter-finals as that will mean we can still qualify for the World Cup. So that’s the target. Getting through the group is the goal we’re starting out with. It’s on BT Sport as well so it’s good to get that level of exposure.”