Born to Australian/Scottish parents, Scott McDonald’s youth football occurred ‘down under’ but, aged 18, he signed a pro contract with the Saints the same month as the club moved to St Marys and, within another month, had made his first team bow in a League Cup victory at Brighton.

But with the likes of James Beattie, Kevin Davies, Marian Pahars and Brett Ormerod ahead of him in the pecking order, he only managed two substitute appearances in the Premier League that season and he was freed by Gordon Strachan in March 2003, which preceded a number of unsuccessful trials.

Eventually his travels took him north of the border where Motherwell offered him a permanent contract and his career belatedly took off.

A hard-running powerful striker he joined Celtic for £700,000 and then Middlesbrough for £3.5 million and the irony was that the manager who parted with those large sums was none other than the man who had discarded him at St Mary’s.

By the time Scott retired in the summer of 2018 he had scored over 170 goals in British football and won 26 caps for Australia, but he was not quite finished. Despite becoming a radio pundit in Scotland he was encouraged to come out of retirement in February 2019 by Partick Thistle and he duly scored on his debut v Alloa.

In May 2019 he returned to his home country and signed for new A-league club Western United but the following January he signed a 18-month contract with Brisbane Roar under manager Robbie Fowler.