Kris Boyd still has Scotland squad call-up hopes

Kris Boyd: Wants future sorted. Picture: SNS

Older, wiser and happier back at his first club, Kilmarnock, Boyd revealed yesterday that he hasn’t given up on playing for Scotland again. “I am enjoying my football again. The Croatia game was maybe a bit early for me and I’m not disappointed at being overlooked but I’d like to think if I could hit the ground running next season and get a few goals, I could force my way back into contention.

“Look at how, once he got back to playing regularly for Motherwell, James McFadden was being talked about for a Scotland return, I’d like to think the same thing could happen to me.”

The call-up for the Croatia game of Boyd’s former Killie team mate Gordon Greer delighted him: “He’s a good player and a good guy who has worked hard to get himself to this level,” he said.

But, foremost in Boyd’s mind is the need to get his own future sorted out after his return to Kilmarnock towards the end of the season.

“The gaffer [Killie manager Kenny Shiels] is on holiday just now, while I’ve got my A Licence coaching course starting soon but I hope I can sit down with Kenny and Chairman Michael Johnson and see what’s what, before I go off on a family holiday to Portugal.

“It’s good to be back home, the kids are now starting school and I’m settled back in Scotland and looking to stay at home,” Boyd continued.

“It’s great to be settled, to be playing regularly and scoring goals and, while the quality of the youngsters coming through at Kilmarnock is terrific, I feel they need more experienced guys like me around to help bring them through.”

But might not Boyd’s experience be equally welcome at his other old club, Rangers? “It’s true I was brought up and still am a Rangers fan. I had some fantastic years there and it’s only after you leave Ibrox and go to England or overseas that you realise just how big a club Rangers are.

“I have had no contact with Rangers and I wish Cammy Bell well there, but, as to me also moving back there, that’s not up to me. What I will say is, Scottish football needs Rangers back in the SPL as quickly as possible, they and Celtic are worldwide draws for Scottish football.”

Boyd was speaking at a Tesco Bank Football Challenge Festival at Rugby Park, at which over 250 kids, from 25 East Ayrshire Primary Schools strutted their stuff on the main pitch.

The festival was the conclusion to a six-week coaching programme to introduce Primary Two and Three children to football and engage in a healthy and active lifestyle.

PULLING TOGETHER

YESTERDAY saw a rare day in the sun for grass roots football in Scotland, with the announcement of One National Plan, an unprecedented coming together of those SFA affiliated bodies who are under the control of the association’s Non-Professional Game Board, writes Matt Vallance.

These bodies – The Scottish Junior, AmateurSchools, Welfare, Youth and Women’s Football Associations, plus the East of Scotland and South of Scotland Leagues, are the healthy wagging tail behind the Premier, Football and Highland Leagues. It might be fair to say that these affiliated bodies haven’t always got on, but now, for the first time, they have agreed to the One National Plan – a strategy aimed at ensuring the football, still Scotland’s most-popular participation sport, continues to develop.

The plan, which was announced yesterday, with the SPL’s all-time leading goal scorer the man chosen to front the launch during a Tesco Bank-sponsored primary schools Football Challenge Festival at Kilmarnock’s Rugby Park.

The six main objectives of the plan are:

• To increase participation

• To create an attractive modern game

• To improve coach education

• To create a vibrant volunteer workforce

• To develop grassroots clubs and schools football

• To create more talented young players.

The complete One National Plan can be viewed at www.scottishfa.co.uk