PHIL O'DONNELL was a quiet man whose death reduced the whole of Scottish football to silence last night.

At the age of 35 he had entered the twilight years of a career which contained both high achievement and appalling luck with injuries. No-one could have guessed the final, tragic twist his body had in store.

Motherwell lost one of their legends when Davie Cooper died of a brain haemorrhage 12 years ago and now they must deal with the death of another, also in his 30s. That is surely too much for one club to have to bear, although it need hardly be said that the pain is heightened for O'Donnell's family. We knew him only as a footballer. Above all else he was a son, the youngest of a family of five girls and two boys, and a husband and father of four.

They sent him on his way to play just another routine football match yesterday - as he had done with professionalism and modesty for 17 years since making his debut for the same club - but it was no ordinary Saturday, and within hours they were inconsolable.

There was no solace to be had in the fact they had tens of thousands of fellow mourners, nor consolation in the heartfelt tributes coming O'Donnell's way. The grieving process began quickly as supporters began to lay flowers and scarves at a sombre, dark and cold Fir Park last night.

Death is never fair but the premature loss of O'Donnell is terribly cruel. He was a gentleman. The old cliché which gets dusted off in times like these, namely that no-one had a bad word to say about him, may as well have been coined specifically for O'Donnell. He was unfailingly polite, gracious, and reserved. Those qualities were evident to team-mates, opponents and the media, and transmitted to supporters of his own and even other clubs. People knew that O'Donnell was one of the good guys.

Years ago he once turned up to play in a youth cup final at Fir Park only to realise that he did not recognise the official at the door. Rather than say "don't you know who I am" he avoided any fuss by walking to a nearby turnstile and paying his way in. "My family taught me to keep my feet on the ground no matter what," he once said. "It's just the way I was brought up, I suppose."

As a teenager he had a talent which could not be contained. He burst into the Motherwell team under Tommy McLean in 1990 as an athletic, hard-running and skilful midfield player. His first goal came in the thrilling 1991 Scottish Cup final victory over Dundee United, although he had impressed his manager even before a ball was kicked.

McLean had worried a little about whether the occasion may get to his shy young star, or at least he did until he had a look at him in their training camp before the game. "We were down at Irvine," said McLean. "At one point when others were getting a bit edgy I looked at Phil. He was just sitting there, munching a bar of chocolate."

O'Donnell's left foot was sweet too. It helped him become the SPFA Young Player of the Year in 1992 with his performances then securing a move to Celtic - the club he supported - in 1994 for a transfer fee of £1.75 million. That remains the highest sum Motherwell have ever received for a player.

The transfer was irresistible for him but it coincided with the physical breakdown which robbed him of so much action during what ought to have been his peak years. He had not been particularly susceptible to injuries when he was at Motherwell and actually played more league games in his first four seasons at Fir Park than he managed in the following decade at Celtic and Sheffield Wednesday, the club to whom he was released in the summer of 1999.

Torn groin muscles, a hernia, a ruptured thigh, a broken kneecap, ruptured ligaments in his right knee, ankle damage: O'Donnell's medical problems could have filled an issue of The Lancet.

It meant he could only fitfully display the talent which had made him the deserving recipient of his only Scotland cap, as a substitute against Switzerland in a World Cup qualifier in 1993. The sequence of injuries which dogged his 20s reduced him to a frustrating figure, unable to fully realise his talent, yet he was rightly proud of the two Scottish Cup winner's medals - with Motherwell and Celtic - and his role in the latter's league championship victory under Wim Jansen in 1998.

Celtic supporters felt that they never saw the best of O'Donnell in his five seasons at the club although his contribution there was greater than it was in England, where he was an almost permanently injured bystander as Sheffield Wednesday fell from the Premiership to the third tier.

By the end of 2003 he was in danger of drifting out of football altogether and had not made a senior appearance for over two years. But the then Motherwell manager Terry Butcher picked him up from Sheffield and took a look at him in training before deciding, inevitably, that at 31 he still had plenty left in the tank to serve in the SPL. He would no longer have the same energy or drive, of course, but he brought experience and an undiminished sense of quality and class.

He signed an 18-month contract, subsequently extended it, and became a player-coach, a wise old presence in the team and also its captain, giving instructions and advice to team-mates who included his nephew, David Clarkson. "Uncle Phil" became his affectionate nickname from the whole squad.

When he joined Motherwell he said: "I just feel as if I have lost the last four years, and now I'd like to try and gain it at this end." And that was what he was doing: despite missing nearly all of last season to yet another injury - to an Achilles tendon this time - the return to Motherwell was one of the most quietly rewarding phases of his career. He was a knowing thoroughbred for them, enjoying his football and even accepting invitations to be an analyst of matches on television.

"I will be 36 in March and I am just trying to play as long as I can and enjoy it," he said in an interview only last month. "Honestly, each game is special to me. I have missed too many games in the middle of my career to stop playing at the age of 35. I can definitely play another two, three or even four years."

Today those words are unbearably poignant. O'Donnell imagined his career ending at Fir Park, but never his life.