Liverpool's Andy Robertson: The people & places behind Scotland defender's rise

The sun beats down on a small patch of grass. Its rays turn the windows of the surrounding high-rise flats into sheets of gold. The midday heat shimmers. Nothing moves.

This is Maryhill, a working-class district in the north of Glasgow. Fifty years ago, this housing estate was known as 'The Barracks'. It is a place rich in Scottish football history.

Charlie Nicholas, one of the best Scottish footballers of his generation, who played with distinction for Celtic and won the 1987 League Cup with Arsenal, grew up here. Next door lived Jim Duffy, an elegant defender who impressed at Greenock Morton, Dundee and Partick Thistle.

As kids in the 1960s and 70s, Duffy and Nicholas dominated football matches in The Barracks. But there was another conspicuous youngster on the scene. Andy Robertson's father Brian, or 'Pop', lived a corner-kick away in a third-floor flat overlooking their makeshift pitch.

'Pop' was a goal poacher with a tenacious streak the size of Hampden Park. He never missed a game, and never shirked a tackle, despite his huge physical disadvantage.

After sustaining a spinal injury at a young age, he was forced to wear a metal brace stretching from his waist to his neck whenever he kicked a ball around with his childhood friends.

Duffy recalls: "Andy has got his determination, that never-give-up attitude, from his dad. That working-class attitude of rolling your sleeves up, making the most of things and seeing where it takes you.

"There's something in his DNA which has pushed him to his limits."

Andy Robertson is an affable guy. Ask anyone. The Liverpool fans who stop him for selfies in the street. The media department at Liverpool FC who find him to be the most obliging of footballers. The former team-mates and coaches who he works hard to remain in touch with. Look closer, though, and there is a cold-blooded glint in those brown eyes. It hints at an awesome toughness.

John Gallagher coached Robertson at under-14 and under-15 level for Celtic. "As a kid, if someone went over the top on Andy, he would chase them down," he says. "He will not shy away from confrontation. He can do the public face, he always speaks very well. But he is a beast on the pitch."

"Wise, and streetwise," is how former Dundee United team-mate John Rankin puts it.

This is, after all, a 25-year-old who had the temerity to clip Lionel Messi around the back of the head on a night when Liverpool pulled off one of the most dramatic comebacks in Champions League history, in their semi-final second leg against Barcelona.

The gesture may not have intimidated the greatest player in the world, but it did perhaps help set the tone for what was to come. It certainly spoke to a strong sense of self that stretches all the way back to Robertson's Maryhill roots.

This Saturday, 'Pop' Robertson will settle into his seat at Atletico Madrid's Wanda Metropolitano to watch his son play for Liverpool in his second successive Champions League final. Robertson's grandparents, meanwhile, will watch the final on television in their flat overlooking that patch of grass in The Barracks.

Rugby Park, Kilmarnock, December 2013. Stan Ternent, Hull City's head of recruitment, has travelled north to take a closer look at Dundee United's stellar cast of young players, including Ryan Gauld, Gary Mackay-Steven and Stuart Armstrong.

Ternent and Hull boss Steve Bruce are piecing together a team capable of holding their own in the Premier League. Harry Maguire, scouted from Sheffield United, will arrive in summer 2014. Tom Huddlestone and Jake Livermore have already checked in from Spurs.

At Kilmarnock, Ternent's eye drifts to the sylph-like youngster leaving scorch marks up and down United's left. He feels his heart beat faster. He has just set eyes on Andy Robertson for the first time.