THE SHORT history of Gretna Football Club is littered with big characters and remarkable records but Henry Makinwa is undoubtedly the first player in the club's history who has previously worked under Juande Ramos and been a signing target for Jose Mourinho. As for his league title win in Romania and eye-opening spell in China, we will come to them in due course.

Fresh from earning an EU passport, the 30-year-old Nigerian-born striker will make his SPL debut against Hearts at Fir Park this afternoon, but it is likely that Makinwa would be significantly higher in the footballing food chain were it not for one particularly calamitous career decision when leaving Portuguese side Vitoria Setubal.

Makinwa eventually opted for a move to Gil Vicente but not before Mourinho - who actually hails from Setubal and whose father Felix was the club's director of football - had been on the phone attempting to persuade him to hold fire long enough for him to offer a rival deal at Leiria. While his former Vitoria Setubal team-mates Ricardo Carvalho and Paulo Ferreira went on to bigger and better things at Porto and Chelsea, Makinwa couldn't wait. Unfortunately for him, superstardom also made other plans.

"Jose Mourinho lives in Setubal, and he knows me," Makinwa told the Sunday Herald. "When he was going to Leiria, and I was leaving Vitoria Setubal, I should have gone with him to Leiria, that is what he said. It was when he had left Barcelona and he had no job. So he came home and watched our games every single Sunday. "I talked to him on the phone, because the agent who was taking me to Gil Vicente called him and said I could talk to him for a bit. He talked to me and said Wait, I didn't know you were not going to stay in Setubal, give me some time, because my team is already made'. He had to move someone on before he could sign me but I couldn't wait because time was closing in. I had to make a decision so I went to Gil Vicente.

"If I had waited maybe it would have been a different story today, but it is still good for my confidence to know that he liked me as a player. I think I could have gone on to a higher level like Carvalho and Ferreira, because we were playing together and playing pretty well. But when you have an African passport that makes quite a big difference in European football."

Then there is Makinwa's other dalliance with managerial greatness in the form of Ramos, the newly-appointed Tottenham manager, who took charge of him as a teenager whilst at Madrid side Rayo Vallecano, and clearly made an impact. "When I was in Spain I was managed by Juande Ramos, who is at Tottenham now," Makinwa said. "He was the best, although I was not playing regularly in the team because I was still very young.

"He has a way to talk to players that makes you believe you are the best," Makinwa added. "Some managers come and tell you that 4-3-3 is the way we are going to play, but he says there is nothing like 4-4-2 or 4-3-3. They are all lies: wherever you are, you have to play. If you lose the ball you have to defend. He has a way of making you feel you can do it easily. He took Rayo back into the top division and to some Uefa Cup games, and it was the best Rayo had ever had."

Makinwa's early struggles with the Spanish language almost saw him return to Lagos as a teenager but he is nothing if not a seasoned traveller. Arguably his most successful period came at a Rapid Bucharest side who won the league and gave him a chance to compete in the qualifying rounds of the Champions League, while another glimpse of the infinite variety of a life in football arrived at Chinese club Tianjin Teda.

"In Romania the lifestyle is very different," Makinwa said. "Because they have had communism or whatever, when the manager speaks that is all. Nobody says if they also have an idea. If training is at 2 o'clock it is 2 o'clock. If it lasts for three hours it is three hours. You have to do it. If you are injured and can't train still the manager wants you to train. It was very difficult in Romania because the temperature was less than 10 degrees and it was always snowing. I hope it is not going to be the same here.Then I went to China for the money but it was fantastic to go out and play there. They were all faster than the ball!"

But it is what Makinwa can do for his new club which is most pertinent this morning. The player - who kept himself in trim with Vallecano as he waited for his EU passport - scored a late equaliser in a reserve match against Rangers a fortnight ago, and clearly feels he can help lift his new club from the bottom of the SPL.

"I think it will suit me here,"

Makinwa said. "When I was playing back in Portugal I was always advised to come and play in Britain, because everyone is fast and strong and that is what you belong to. Nobody knows what is going to happen but I have to be positive," added Makinwa, who has played for Nigeria at youth level but has yet to receive a call-up by Berti Vogts for the full international side.

Makinwa has signed at Gretna until the end of the season, and will not be the only new face to arrive as they strive to remain in the SPL. Director of football Mick Wadsworth's time managing Portuguese side Beira-Mar may have assisted in the scouting of Makinwa, but after taking a back seat in the summertime, manager Davie Irons himself plans to be more hands-on when it comes to recruitment in January. The alternative is ending up like Hearts' coach, Steven Frail, who has all the responsibility but little power.

"The players in the summer time were very much Mick's," Irons said. "He identified players and brought them in. Perhaps I should have instilled a bit of my own personality on some of the players I'd like to have brought in. But that's easy in hindsight. Mick was confident and like any manager or coach some will be successful and some won't.

"I played against Stevie Frail when he played with Dundee and Hearts and there's a man who's come through a heck of a lot in his short management or coaching career at Hearts. Stevie obviously gets told who's coming in, I don't know if it's true he gets told the team but I'm sure he's got an input.

"But I don't have that, I get sole responsibility of picking the side," Irons added. "I can't argue with how we operate at Gretna. I've been given an opportunity and I thoroughly enjoy it. There are players who've been brought in but that's something we knew was going to happen and we've all grown to accept and live with." Makinwa, meanwhile, simply has a lot to live up to.