Life's a ball as Hibs target McLaren gets his highs from game

WHEN Andy McLaren tells you his life is boring, what he really means is that it’s normal. But normality was always likely to seem humdrum when catalogued alongside past experiences.

Drink, drugs and all the highs and lows that detrimental concoctions bring have coloured and soiled his adult life in equal measure, so now everyday bickering with a teenage son, financial woes, the odd round of golf or a night in front of the television and hours whiled away with an engrossing book, probably do seem fairly boring.

You won’t hear the out-of-contract 30-year-old whingeing about it, though. Far from it. Off the field of play his more mundane existence actually offers him the solace he once sought in a night on the tiles and several bottles of beer, while self-deprecation and an analytical honesty borne of frequent Alcoholics Anonymous meetings allow him to laugh at the almost unbelievable degree to which his life has changed since he first sought assistance for his addictive demons in 2000.

But the real reason that he is comfortable making gentle jibes at his new run-of-the- mill lifestyle is the fact he knows that when it comes to performances on a football pitch he remains anything other than dull. It just isn’t in his make-up.

Which is just one reason Hibernian fans should be crossing fingers in the hope pen can be put to paper before someone else signs up the man who failed to agree new terms with Kilmarnock when his contract expired at the end of last term and is currently enduring pre-season training with the Easter Road club.

A club criticised last term for it’s lack of heart as well as straying too far from the entertaining genre the supporters have grown to expect since the days of the Famous Five, he could almost be an identikit of the kind of signing required.

A tanner ba’-type entertainer, who loves the thrill of taking on defenders and supplying ammunition to the main target man, he has the additional advantages of self-belief, a never-say- die attitude, a buoyant personality and bags of experience, all traits required to soothe some bruised egos and give a youthful squad some backbone and confidence.

"I like having a laugh and a joke. I cried for long enough so I enjoy life now and that shows in the dressing room. I am experienced and I feel that I’ve got something to offer any club, with my experience and my attitude. I’m still a decent player and I’m confident in my own ability. I’ll be honest, I know there’s more to come from me. I’ve still not played my best game - that’s still to come."

Whether it will come in the green and white of Hibs remains to be seen as player and club play the waiting game as the accountants decide who’s affordable and who’s not.

A player who hates losing ("I don’t think that’s a bad thing. I admit I can be a nark on the park sometimes but I hate seeing people losing and still looking happy. I don’t think that’s right") and, unlike others, is not crippled by feelings of inferiority ("Even if I’m playing Celtic or Rangers I believe I can win. I don’t know if everybody thinks like that and that annoys me, but I certainly do"), his footballing philosophy could be made to measure as far as the capital city fans are concerned.

"I would say I get more enjoyment from beating two or three players and setting up a goal than actually scoring a goal myself," says the player who was signed up by the- then Rugby Park gaffer, Bobby Williamson, when he returned to the game following his stint in rehab after testing positive for cocaine and cannabis and admitting he was an alcoholic in 2000.

"Football was my first love and I used to love coming into training, and then I lost that. Lots of alcoholics have a hidden talent, and I knew my talent, but the alcohol took the enjoyment away. Now I love playing football again. I’m back in love with it again and I like to go out there and give the fans something to enjoy.

"They look forward to their Saturdays for a wee bit of enjoyment and it might sound a wee bit romantic but the way I look at football, although it’s our job, we’re still supposed to be entertaining.

"It might be romantic pie in the sky but I don’t like seeing teams going somewhere and just sitting in. I really hate that. Okay, so, you only get beat 1-0 or get a 0-0 draw but is that what it’s all about? I don’t think so."

Football, like life, is there to be cherished as far as McLaren is concerned these days. "I like reading autobiographies and I’ve read Tony Adams’ and Paul Merson’s. I could identify with so much in them and reading Merson’s, it seems like he’s really struggling but it is a struggle.

"Some people think that once you’ve joined AA, that’s it, you’re cured, and it’s not like that. It’s really hard trying to adjust to stuff. In my second year I was always so tired that I thought there was something wrong with me. I even went to the doctor and had tests done, but all that had happened was that I’d hit a wall.

"I’d been trying so hard mentally and physically to adjust that I’d burnt myself out. After training every day, I was so shattered I was going to my bed.

"But I worked through that. It’s the same on the park. There are times when I’m having a nightmare and I’m not enjoying it but I still keep taking the ball and trying to take guys on. Everyone has bad games but people are more likely to forgive you if you keep trying and don’t hide."

It’s a mantra he now abides by in everyday life. A positive outlook, he is secure enough in his new, self-proclaimed mundane existence to poke fun at it. He talks openly about his hardships and his quest for self-improvement in all aspects of life, and the college courses geared towards a career in counselling when football stops providing a living.

"I’m a much better dad and a much better husband than I was three or four years ago. I’m a better player and I now know what my faults are - it’s doing something about them that’s the hard part. I’m not perfect but I’m getting so close to it, it’s frightening!" he says giggling. "That was a joke, by the way. I’m never going to be an angel and I don’t want to be. I’ve still got a bit of devil in me and it helps me on the park."

While normaility has become an acceptable part of McLaren’s life, perfection, it seems, would be just too boring.