Hand it to Andy McNeil for stepping back from Easter Road and starting over

Published on Friday 18 December 2009 23:25

SOME people would regard it as brave. Others would see what Andy McNeil has done as merely the perfect way to kick-start a career which was in danger of regressing into part of a sorry saga.

Heard the one about the Hibernian goalkeepers? Almost everyone has, McNeil included in a list of custodians who have simply been regarded as error-prone on account of aberrations in high-profile matches. McNeil insists he has never had an interest in reading newspapers but in the close season, when he became a free agent, the 22-year-old discovered that perception counts for a lot.

"I was a young boy, aged 19, playing for one of the biggest clubs in the country and in my first 25 games I maybe lost three goals that were solely my fault," he explained yesterday. "I don't think that is bad.

"I won the League Cup and played in a Scottish Cup semi-final but people remember me as the lad who played in an Edinburgh derby and lost a bad goal. Simon Brown, Zibby (Malkowski] and Yves Ma-Kalambay have all had the same treatment. The papers keep the story going, which is unfair. People were telling me on Monday that 'your mate Yves has thrown one in again (at Kilmarnock]'. I watched it on television and he was clearly fouled but nothing is made of that.

"If you are asking me if it had an impact on my position last summer, then yes; I think it did."

The upshot, after trial periods at Shamrock Rovers, Livingston and Clyde, plus a sojourn to Malta which lasted all of one day, is that McNeil has swapped Easter Road for literally rock bottom of the Scottish Football League. He now turns out for Montrose, who sit at the foot of the Third Division, three years after representing Scotland as the first-choice goalkeeper at the Under 19 European Championships.

"I wouldn't say what I did was brave, but I can understand why people in a similar position might have chucked football altogether," he said. "Any athlete has a high opinion of themselves and feels they should be showing their talents on a good stage.

"I have friends who had to go part-time and they hadn't played the 40 SPL games I had done, so I have seen how hard it can be. I felt I deserved better.

"It got to the point where I had to decide if I would just chuck it, which would mean that I had basically wasted the last seven years of my life. My answer was that I didn't want to do that, I still feel I have lots to offer.

"I didn't play much for Hibs last season, my last game was in early December, so now it is time for me to prove that I have a lot to offer. I want to show people they were wrong not to take a chance on me last summer."

To his credit, McNeil does not indulge in what ifs. It was one of Mixu Paatelainen's final acts as the Hibs manager to release the goalkeeper; John Hughes' arrival, which has triggered at least an early season title charge, means matters could perhaps have been all so different.

"First and foremost, I wasn't there when John Hughes came in so there is no point thinking that way," McNeil said. "And if he had wanted me to be there, he could have picked up the phone, which he didn't.

"I wasn't going to get better by sitting on a bench every week. I had to get to somewhere that I could play and develop."

Steven Tweed, then, has stepped in where Hughes did not. "It is great to have a manager who believes in you," the goalkeeper added. "I am grateful to Steven for giving me this chance; I think I have the skills in place but was never going to develop without being able to play.

"I can play with a bit more freedom now because I know I am the first choice goalkeeper. And if I do make a mistake, I know the manager is behind me."

The biggest culture shock of Scotland's fourth tier to McNeil has not related to fitness regimes, largely because he trains daily with Raith Rovers.

"Funnily enough, the most notable thing is, because there are less people at the games, you hear everything they shout at you," he said.

"I have been a target for a bit of abuse and you hear it all, some of it is actually pretty funny. That has been a bit of a shock. Playing in front of 10,000 people at Easter Road, all you hear is noise."

The artificial surface at Links Park is not even a significant drawback, it seems. "Give me a flat, predictable surface over a muddy Third Division pitch any day," McNeil insisted.

Adaptation is fast becoming second nature.