Scottish Catholic Observer

Andy Robertson, the Liverpool star now recognised as one of Scotland’s most promising footballers, was a pupil of St Ninian’s in Giffnock, and competes against Real Madrid in the European final on Saturday May 26.

Having captained his school football team, Andy joined Celtic as a youth, but was let go as he wasn’t tall enough. In a tweet on August of 2012, he wrote: “Life at this age is rubbish with no money #needajob.”

Andy persevered and went on to sign with Queen’s Park shortly after finishing his sixth year at high school, before heading to Dundee United, then Hull City, and now Liverpool, where he has flourished as one of the top Scottish players in the UK.

St Ninian’s headteacher John Docherty spoke of Andy’s school days, and how he gone from strength to strength since leaving.

“As the newspapers have reported, he was a good lad,” he said. “A hardworking boy and very sporty; his family are lovely as well.

“There’s a lot of talented youngsters from our school, male and female, who’ve gone on to do some great things in sport and beyond.”

Robertson’s former PE teacher at St Ninian’s High School, Josef Fuchs, spoke of how it has been ‘a tremendous privilege’ to see what the young footballer has achieved so far.

“He’s still young, so he’s hopefully going to achieve a lot more within football and beyond that,” he said.

Mr Fuchs noted that the star had always been very good at football, but was a multitalented sportsman across the board, also playing tennis, golf and having represented the school in athletics.

“He was kind of an all-rounder, but his real passion was in football,” he said. “Hopefully the whole school community will be behind him, yeah,” Mr Fuchs added. “We’re very excited to watch the game on Saturday, and hopefully Liverpool can win.”