George Hirst backed by England-cap dad for Scotland switch

“He said the greatest honour in his career was playing international football. He said give it your best shot and see where it takes you.

“It’s a bit of a dream come true. It is a chance to play international football and my grandad was sort of Scottish and it’s an opportunity to go and make him proud.”

Clarke need a similar target man with Lyndon Dykes missing through injury, but Hirst has known for some time about Scotland’s interest.

“It’s always been a big aim of mine,” he told the Scottish FA’s YouTube channel. “I’ve been asked about it by the media at Ipswich over the last year and I’ve tried to bat it off as I was just going to focus on Ipswich, but if I’m brutally honest, it’s always been on the back of my mind.

“He dropped me a text and asked for a phone call and we spoke for five or 10 minutes saying he wanted to know if I was interested in playing for Scotland.

“I went to speak to my partner and my family about it, but straight away I said yeh. It is an opportunity I can’t turn down.”

Hirst has made 20 appearances for his Premier League club this season, only three of them starts, but he timed his third goal of the season perfectly when Clarke scouted him in their FA Cup penalty shoot-out defeat by Nottingham Forest two weeks ago.

A fourth goal followed in the weekend 4-2 league defeat by the same opponents.

“Obviously I saw little bits on Twitter after the game about who was there to watch and I knew it was myself,” Hirst said. “I tried to keep a little bit hush about that.

“I knew he was going to be there. Obviously it was good timing to get the goal.”

Asked what kind of player “the loudest fans in the world” would see, he suggested: “Intense. I like to get after people. I like to press.

“I think the one thing I can guarantee is that, if my touch isn’t there, if my finishing isn’t there for whatever reason, the worst you are going to get is a seven out of 10. Hopefully there will be plenty of goals along with that.”