When asked to consider the worst footballer player ever to (dis)grace the Scottish game, my mind was immediately sent spinning with a dizzying array of plodders, no-hopers, and the downright useless: the kind of players who, by merely having their names read out before the match, can induce painful grimaces and howls of derision from the paying customer.

These are the type of footballers that have stunned supporters the length and breadth of the country by being selected every week, yet consistently give the impression they have never seen a ball before.

Let us begin with those impostors who have actually made their way into the realms of international football with Scotland.

It makes bleak reading, and brings shame to the great blue jerseys sported by Law, Dalglish, and Baxter, to glance upon page 173 of the Wee Red Book and note that Dave McPherson has ever pulled on the same strip. Not just once, but 27 times! The lanky Rangers-then-Hearts-then-Rangers-then-Hearts defender - with the gangling gait of a giraffe, and barnet resembling the back end of a bison - has all the poise of a Keystone Kop and the fearsome presence of a mildly miffed Sir Geoffrey Howe.

Then we have Robert Conner and Peter Grant - who must have picked up their caps during a crippling epidemic of sorts.

There has never been a shortage of big useless lumps that play at the back in the Scottish game and there are a plethora of contenders from this category. Lex Baillie, Gregor Stevens, and Darren Dods are names which immediately send a shiver down the spine. If we take a step down from this sub-basement level of quality football, we are soon confronted by the marvellously awful Peter Godfrey, a man for whom the words ''subtle flick''

could only be used to describe his hairstyle. Then, of course, there is the incomparable Crawford Baptie, who plays just as you would imagine someone called Crawford Baptie would.

Next up are the imports. Not all foreign players have had the impact of Laudrup or Di Canio. Celtic have had the hegemony on duffers from foreign fields. The list makes for painful perusal: Martin Hayes, Stuart Slater, Wayne Biggins, Andy Payton, Rudi Vata, and Ian Andrews. None of whom could have set the pitch alight even if handed a truckload of napalm and a box of matches.

Special mention in this rank must go to Anton Rogan, Celtic's hapless Irish full back, who somehow managed almost six full seasons in the first team. Rogan's finest moment came when he rose high above the Rangers attack at Ibrox to fist the ball away for a quite spectacularly unnecessary penalty, and then pleaded with the referee, all choirboy innocence, that he had done nothing untoward. There was a cruel inevitability about Rogan's penalty miss in the 1990 Scottish Cup final

which handed Aberdeen a 9-8 win.

As we near the top three nominations, there must be special mention for enigmas like Joe Tortolano, a player so manifestly terrible that his every move was booed and jeered by Falkirk fans, who are not exactly fed on a diet of high class football. Then there is Motherwell's Kevin Christie, a player so enervated and sickly that forwards rarely look comfortable going anywhere near him.

And now...for the awards.

At No.3 I have placed Scott Nisbet. When describing ''Big Nissy's'' unique style of play, Rangers manager Walter Smith once exclaimed: '' Every pass is an adventure.''

But Nisbet was fortunate to have scored one of the most incredible goals of all time, which paradoxically demonstrated, and will eclipse, the fact that he couldn't kick a ball to save himself. His high looping welly of a clearance in the Champions' League match with Bruges took the ball on a trajectory akin to the bullet that hit JFK and

landed with a spin violent enough to disgrace Shane Warne, before nestling in the stunned Belgian goalie's net. And it is for this amazing piece of witchcraft that Nisbet will always be remembered.

Hibs supporters during the early 1980s will recall with a chilling certainty my No.2 choice, Ally ''Benny'' Brazil. A dead-ringer for Popeye's girlfriend Olive Oyl, Benny was so feeble in the tackle, so woeful in front of goal, and so terrified in possession that he looked like he might faint at any time.

So who is the worst? Like choosing your favourite player, it is a hugely personal decision, and I have made it a team award, going collectively to anyone that has ever played for Airdrie.

Airdrie, the team that loves to be hated. Airdrie, the side that always kicks your team out of the Cup. Airdrie, the team which make Dunfermline look like the Brazil side of 1970.

Airdrie bloody Airdrie.

www.scotgeist.com edited by Pat Kane