Leigh Griffiths aims to make Player of the Year history

Celtic's Leigh Griffiths won Scottish Football Writer's Player of the Year award. Picture: SNS

The Celtic striker has joined a select band of players to claim the honour twice after being named as the recipient of this season’s coveted honour by the Scottish Football Writers’ Association.

Griffiths, whose 39 goals for Celtic this season helped him achieve a landslide victory in the annual poll, previously picked up the award in 2013 when he was on loan at Hibs from Wolves.

There have been six previous double winners of Scottish football’s longest-established and most prestigious individual honour since its inception in 1965.

They are: John Greig (1966 and 1976), Sandy Jardine (1975 and 1986), Brian Laudrup (1995 and 1997), Henrik  Larsson (1999 and 2001), Barry Ferguson (2000 and 2003) and Craig Gordon (2006 and 2015).

As thrilled as he is to join such illustrious company, Griffiths is not prepared to rest on his laurels and will set out try and be the country’s top performer again next year.

“It’s always nice to win individual awards,” said the 25-year-old.

“This will be the second time I have won it and, hopefully, it is not the last.

“You never know what the future holds. Hopefully I can replicate what I’ve done this season and maybe be back in the running for the award next season.

“The last time I won this, I was fighting a relegation battle with Hibs three years ago. This time it has been about concentrating on winning a league medal with Celtic. So, while it is nice to get these individual awards, at the end of the day a league medal counts  the most.”

Griffiths will receive his  Player of the Year trophy at the SFWA’s annual awards dinner in Glasgow on Sunday night.

That will cap off a day of  celebration for the Scotland international, with Celtic also being presented with the  Premiership trophy earlier in the day following their final game of the season at home to Motherwell.

“I haven’t started work on my acceptance speech yet,” added Griffiths with a smile.

“But I’m sure come Sunday night, I will be firing on all  cylinders!”.