HIS FELLOW Hawarden High School old boys Michael Owen and Gary Speed might have plotted a more straightforward route to football stardom, but it is entirely in keeping with his style of play that Andy Dorman should be making a stealthy and neatly-timed late run. The box-to-box St Mirren midfielder has been a revelation since joining from New England Revolution last January - to the extent that the likes of Bolton were said to be circling this summer - but by rights the 26-year-old could easily be seeing out his time in Wales or in English non-league football by now.

Having had no takers from senior clubs despite an appearance for Wales Under-18s, the intervention of a PE teacher and the insistence of his family saw the teenage Dorman up sticks for Massachusetts on a soccer scholarship. Just months into his American experience - he was studying for a degree in geography at Boston University - he grew homesick and packed his bags, fully intending to return to his home just over the Welsh border near Chester. Fortunately he had second thoughts. "I was only 17 at the time so to go out there in the first place was quite a hard decision," said Dorman, "but my mum and dad said just go out till Christmas, treat it as a holiday if nothing else, maybe have a year out then go back to Uni after the next summer if it doesn't work out'.

"The first semester was pretty hard, I got really homesick, and at Christmas the first year I brought all my stuff back ready to come back but soon I started thinking everything is exactly the same here as it was when I left'. I decided there was no point coming back."

From then on, Dorman's story is an embodiment of the American dream - even if it has taken a move to Paisley for him to fully become a star in stripes. The first part fell into place when he quite literally started to become big in America. Worries about his lack of height and thin frame - which saw him kicked about in his early days at part-time Hawarden Rangers - were dispelled by a growth spurt in his late teens and a punishing weights regime. It was the turn of others to feel intimidated by his athletic prowess.

"I was never that big when I was younger, I didn't grow until I was 17 or 18 really," said Dorman, whose younger brother Richie is now a sophomore at Boston University. "But when I went out to America I started doing the weights and stuff and that helped me a lot. I was a decent runner back then but just being able to do it when you are a bit bigger build is harder."

Dorman is a first pick for St Mirren these days, but the midfielder could be forgiven if it took him a while to adjust to this status. For all his development at Boston, back during the 2004 MLS Superdraft, his name was selected as far back as 58th out of the 60 spots available for aspiring college soccer players, and a mere 57 places behind wonderkid Freddy Adu. The ignominy of his ranking was lessened somewhat by the fact that it paired him with his new hometown team New England Revolution and matched the Liverpool fan with one of his heroes, Revolution boss Steve Nicol.

"I watched the first few rounds and obviously my name didn't come out," Dorman recalls. "So I just started getting annoyed, and eventually stopped watching it. Obviously the early round picks are the ones that people think are sure to do better, but I was quite fortunate that in my first year there was a lot of injuries so I got my chance in the team pretty much straight away. In my debut game I was also still finishing college. My mates were all celebrating graduation and out partying but I was actually playing."

An ever-increasing involvement in the team followed, along with three MLS Cup finals - all of them lost - and one US Cup final, which was won. But in the MLS, impressing your team manager is only half of the story. Convincing commissioner Don Garber and league bosses enough to get your contract demands signed off centrally is another matter entirely. Last season, Dorman wanted to re-sign. Nicol wanted him to re-sign. The only problem was that the MLS decided his wage demands would be best spent somewhere else. When the hardball continued - Dorman was surprisingly omitted from an MLS All-Star game, although his statistics were good enough to see him included - it became clear it was time to move on.

"The hard part of dealing with a major league is that all the contracts are overseen centrally," Dorman said. "Everything has got to be signed off by the club and then the league. Over here you can kind of play teams off against each other I guess in terms of wage demands, but over there you are negotiating with the league so it always comes down to one man's decision."

If it all means he is missing out on the David Beckham show, Dorman -who played against, and was impressed by Rangers' Maurice Edu - isn't in the mood to look back. "I am really happy I made the move," he said. "The decision was really forced on me to come back home but in retrospect I am really glad that it was." As for the respective standards, he believes St Mirren would beat New England Revolution if they played at Love Street in winter, but may lose to them in Boston in summer.

Dorman falls into the same loophole as Hearts' Andy Driver, where despite playing for the Welsh schoolboys, he could only play at full level for England, so it is little wonder that international week leaves him cold. "Obviously the rules have been put in place to stop England, more so, taking other players," he said, "but it is what it is. It is probably too late on in my career to be looking at playing international football anyway."

After a summer of occasional transfer speculation, for the moment Dorman - who got engaged this summer, not married, as was misreported elsewhere - is just happy to be back on the radar again. The player has the remainder of this season on his contract, and the club has an option for one more. And such is his form that it is hard to see them not taking it up. "It is not so much that other teams are paying attention, it is just good that your friends and family are calling up and texting, when they see your name on SkySports news. Not many people stay up to watch the MLS on Channel 5."