Cameron’s tartan cap still in style

FOR one who insists that he hasn’t changed that much since his teenage days as a YTS car mechanic, Colin Cameron’s life experiences in the past 12 months must have been one hell of a shock to his system.

A whirlwind period in which his domestic circumstances, career and emotions have been all but turned on their heads, the inner person may remain principally the same, but there is an added strength and bubbly demeanour derived from thriving on various transitions.

For the first time in his 29 years, Cameron has moved away from his hometown of Kirkcaldy, and has faced a hectic schedule of relocating, house-hunting and three games a week. A year ago, he was a settled club captain, husband and father, plugging away in the SPL, trying not to let Hearts’ penny-pinching approach frustrate him and scupper international aspirations that were quietly gathering momentum. But his spark was sputtering off the field, and even he expressed concerns that his game would soon follow suit.

"I felt I was starting to establish myself in the Scotland set-up and was getting more and more starts in games instead of sitting on the bench, so I didn’t want my performances at club level to dip. I felt that if I had stayed longer then that might have happened, but Wolves came along and gave me an opportunity, and it was one that I really didn’t have any hesitation in taking."

That was in August, and you can be sure that he has no regrets.

By then separated from his wife and daughter, Reagan, on whom he dotes (his face and tone soften as he talks of her) the lure of being closer to the youngster in England, lack of ties to Scotland and the promise of a pop at the Premiership proved too much to resist.

It was all a means to an end, though.

The only thing that comes close to generating in Cameron the enthusiasm or misty-eyed sentimentality directed at his daughter - who now lives just two-and-a-half hours’ drive away from him - is the honour of playing for his country.

There is an impression that in this money-dominated football era, honour is an out-dated currency, as worthless as the peseta, but when the diminutive midfielder talks about the dark-blue jersey, the word has some resonance.

"When I first made it into the squad, I thought if I got one or maybe two caps then I’d be happy, but once you get that, you start to think about maybe hitting double figures, but now the next stage for me is reaching 25. It’s a great honour every time you pull on the blue jersey, and I’ve got 14 caps so far, which is great.

"But it still takes some time to sink in. When you’re younger, you go to Scotland games and hope that one day you’ll be out there, and I’ve been lucky enough to achieve that, and I’ve scored at Hampden as well in a blue jersey, and that’s a fantastic feeling. The best thing about it is when you are standing there listening to the national anthem, and looking around at the crowd. You just get goosebumps every single time: it doesn’t matter who it’s against, whether it’s Latvia, Lithuania or France. It’s the blue jersey that counts."

Desperate to hang on to his place when Craig Brown’s successor takes over, Cameron wants to make amends for missing out on the World Cup. "Disappointments at international level are different from disappointments at club level. It dents your pride more when you lose playing for Scotland than it does when you lose at club level. If you lose at club level, you make a lot of, say, Hearts fans disappointed, but if you lose playing for Scotland, then it’s a whole nation you’ve let down. That’s much harder to take."

Maybe that is why Cameron is so relaxed at Molineux, and seems unfazed by the perennial dreams and expectations of promotion to the Premiership which are harboured by the sizeable support base in Wolverhampton and beyond.

Before yesterday’s matches, Wolves occupied one of two automatic promotion places, joint top on points with league leaders Manchester City. And there is a hint of glee in Cameron as he talks about how close the race is, with any one of 10 or more clubs capable of going up. After years of looking on at SPL two-horse races, he is revelling in a battle that is as much mental as physical.

"Every player should be aiming for trophies and winning leagues. I’ve been lucky enough to experience that with Raith Rovers, twice winning the First Division and also the Coca-Cola Cup, and with Hearts when we won the Scottish Cup. Once you’ve tasted success, you want it every year. It would be amazing if I was part of the team, especially in my first season here, that helped Wolves get into the Premiership after them being the nearly men for so long. To help them do that would be beyond my expectations.

"When we won the cup with Hearts it was unbelievable, and I can imagine it being exactly the same here. The whole place will probably grind to a standstill."

While Cameron the player is unlikely to do likewise for a good few years - bi-monthly visits to an osteopath in France help to keep a pelvic problem in check and prolong a career that he hopes has five or six years to run - life is beginning to slow down to jogging pace again.

Adrenaline and his reignited enthusiasm kept him going in the initial spell after the move south, but after months of house-hunting and watching the hotel walls close in on him - "I started to feel claustrophobic, and I’m not" - he is now a contented bystander as his girlfriend, Nicola, who will move from Edinburgh on a permanent basis this month, and his parents turn his new house into a home.

"My mum and dad come down to visit quite a bit. The last time dad was down, he put up all my light fittings, and the next time he’s got the painting to do. Nicola picks the colours and furnishings, and then my dad does it all, and I sit and criticise and tell him he’s missed a bit."

When he is not pretending to be Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen minus cuffs and coiffure, Cameron makes the most of a burgeoning collection of DVDs that increased tenfold during the long, lonely months of hotel-living. In the absence of Reagan, he indulges in his new-found pastime of reading.

"I never used to read because I was too busy with the little one, who took up all my time after training when I was at Hearts, but now I only get her every second weekend. I’m not complaining, because I see her more now than I did when we split up and I was still in Kirkcaldy, and she was in London with her mum. But I do still really miss her, and until I started reading I never had anything worthwhile to do in the afternoons when I’m supposed to be resting and recharging the batteries."

The thrillers also help to kill time on the long away trips. "I suppose I’m really starting to get into books. At Hearts I used to play cards on the bus, and I lost as much as I won, but now I’d rather read. I suppose that’s yet another change that’s happened in the past year. I don’t know if it’s because I’ve moved on to a different stage of my life, or maybe it’s just that I’m getting that wee bit older. I’m almost 30."

Age holds no fears for Cameron. He is happier now than he has been in a long time, and with Wolverhampton Wanderers and their Scottish recruit on the brink of finally fulfilling their Premiership dream, surely things can only get better.

Taken from the Scotsman