It was once a matter of arithmetic. The Fifty Pitches in Govan would produce hundreds of stories on a weekend.The pitches have gone and McKenna Park now sits on the site but the tales persist. There is history on this piece of land. But there is the matter of geography too.Saltire City are a club that seeks to be a Lanarkshire presence who play in the South of Scotland League in a ground in Glasgow. This intriguing state of affairs will all be explained on an afternoon when the club progresses to the next round of the Southern Counties Football Association Alba Cup with a 3-1 win against Nithsdale Wanderers.The geography lesson, though, starts hours before kick-off. It begins with a Ukrainian, an American and an Englishman walking into a dressing room. They are on serious business. They are looking to resurrect once promising careers.Maksym Trush, from Lviv, has been in Britain for four years. At 19, he is looking to pursue his football career in a country he has come to love. Josh Dalton, 22, from Derby, has moved north with his partner and wants to continue playing football and see where it takes him. Camryn Donald, 19, is from Florida and has a good pedigree with spells at Fleetwood and Airdrie. He has thrown himself into the Scottish experience and has continued his studies in the business of football while doing some coaching.They are, however, far from the most exotic visitors to Govan. Attahir Ali has already experienced much at the age of 19. He was born in Chad and moved to France before coming to Scotland eight years ago. A lithe and sinuous winger, he has already attracted interest from his national selectors. Saltire City aim to resurrect the careers of promising players who have dropped out of football’I sent them a video of my performances when I was at Dumbarton and last season they invited me over to Chad to have a look at me. They paid for the flights and hotel and it was a great experience,’ he says.He was immersed in training with the national squad and it is an experience he hopes to repeat. Ali was particularly impressed by Marius Mouandilmadji, the forward who plays for Samsunspor in Turkey and was selected for the European Conference League team of the season.’I learned a lot from him,’ says Ali. ‘He is an excellent player and a great pro. I want to go on and make a career for myself in football. I played for Dumbarton under-age teams for the past few seasons but this is my first campaign in men’s football.’It is very different. I am playing against men who are strong and fast and I must become accustomed to that. But I am enjoying it, 100 per cent. It is the most I have ever enjoyed football. I live in Glasgow – in Summerston – and I love this country, though the weather…’There are, of course, players who have travelled shorter distances than Chad or Ukraine to wave the Saltire.Stephen Gemmell, at 28, is one of the older heads. He played both Junior and amateur football but stepped away from the game when he was working in retail and could not have weekends off. He was intrigued, though, by the ambitions of Saltire City.’It was an exciting project to be involved in something like this from the ground up. I had played for Paul Davies (manager) in the past and always been impressed by him. I bumped into him and had a long chat and here I am. I didn’t take much convincing.’This is a great set-up. There are a lot of cultures here and it is a great dressing-room. Attahir has even been involved in his national team and there are people from all over the world but there are no cliques.’The captain is 18-year-old Jamie White who played for Airdrie, making his debut in a Championship game against Livingston.’I have been enjoying every minute of this,’ says the midfielder. ‘I had a long chat with Paul (Davies) before I came here. I took to him. I was definitely signing after speaking to him.’My main thing was that I wanted to get back to enjoying football because there was a spell when I didn’t. I love it here. There are different boys, different cultures so you have to be able to adapt when you are talking to team mates.’ Director of football operations Paul Dorrian wants Saltire City to find a home in Lanarkshire Enough of geography. Now a wee slice of history.Bob Stevens, 80, once played briefly for St Anthony’s, proud custodians of McKenna Park. ‘It was along the road then,’ he says. He knows the Fifty Pitches once was the stalking ground of Sir Alex Ferguson as a player.’I once trained with him at Third Lanark when I think he was at St Johnstone and training in Glasgow,’ he says. ‘He gave me a boot up the bahookie. But I do recall that I was just a lad and a senior player was bullying me. Sir Alex sorted that out immediately.’There is pre-game chatter of PD1 and PD2 and the advent of AI to Saltire City. The PDs refer to Paul Dorrian, director of football operations, and Paul Davies, manager. AI and its significance for the club is fully explained.Dorrian charts the formation of the club while doling out lanyards, consulting with players and volunteers, and attending the myriad of tasks that routinely come on matchday.’Paul and I worked together at Glasgow Women and one day we were having a joke about American sport and why they were so passionate about it and how they named their teams and how they were formed. Later he came along to me and said: ”I have decided I am going to do it. I am going to form a team”.’This was the spark. It has become a reality. There is a misconception that City joined the South of Scotland League to make progress to the Lowland League quicker.’I think some of the clubs in the league thought that but that has been dispelled,’ he says. ‘The truth is that West of Scotland league entry was closed when we were thinking about the formation of the team. The South of Scotland League, though, invited us in last season. We were simply not ready then. Spaces opened up in the West of Scotland but we decided to go with the South who had been welcoming us from the start.’The mission is simple. ‘We are aiming to be sustainable. We want to run SFA programmes and charitable foundations but that is in the future. Essentially, we are a Lanarkshire club and we want to find an area there where we can develop,’Talks on this project have already started with hopes of a permanent home in the 2028-29 season. The vast majority of home games will be played at Carluke Rovers with their latest game being in Govan because of a fixture clash.’We are reliant on sponsorship at the moment but our business model is 25% sponsorship and 75% business revenue from the programmes we run.’He admits: ‘Starting a team from scratch has been tiring but I have been loving it. I have a background in coaching but dealing with matters off the pitch has been an education.’At 43, he has a demanding job as a railway executive but is consoled by dreams of retirement. ‘It would be great to see all this take off and in years to come I would be the old committee man at the side of the park with the free pie and Bovril.’The traditional fare of semi-professional football may endure but if so it will be joined by modern analytics. Attahir Ali moved to Scotland eight years ago and has trained with the Chad national squadDavies has the experience of a lifetime in football. At 49, he can look back on coaching spells at Motherwell, player recruitment roles at Chesterfield and Hartlepool, the coaching of a highly successful Carluke amateur side and then the transfer to the town’s Rovers and conspicuous success there.’First, we are a Lanarkshire-based club. That is important to us. We are grateful to be playing here today and then in Carluke but our permanent base will be in Lanarkshire,’ he says.’Second, I noticed that many young players from academies and the like drop out of the game when they are about 20. Where do they go? I wanted to develop something that could cater for these guys.’His team is obviously well-coached and filled with players with a very decent level of technical ability.’Recruitment is obviously important but we want to help players move on,’ he says. ‘This club has to be sustainable and players moving on will be part of that.’AI will play a major role in that aim. ‘We are taking player data and sending it to a company that can provide a personal portfolio on each player,’ he says.’How do we look at players and how do we judge players?’ he asks. ‘We want to strip the emotions away. We are developing an ambitious Ai system to provide information based on data that can be given to clubs who want to recruit our players. It is a work in progress and may be some years away from full fruition but we are already starting on it.’Geography, history and a double period of computer science. Every day is a school day in Scottish fitba’.