Revealed: Top English team Davie Weir turned down to join Falkirk

The defender was signed out of the Amercian college system by Jim Jefferies, handing the defender the platform to go on to achieve football honours including the World Cup Finals in France, the 1998 Scottish Cup with Hearts and a UEFA Cup final appearance with Rangers ten years later.

The 50-year-old loans manager at Brighton and Hove Albion, snapped up the chance to sign for his hometown team after leaving stateside soccer in Evansville USA – but it almost didn’t happen.

Waiting for a call at home, Weir had boots and would travel – to wherever replied to one of his many letters asking for a trial at clubs across the country.

But local contacts proved key and he ended up a Bairn – rejecting the chance at the bright lights of the English Premier League as a 22-year-old that he’d go on to sample with Everton late in his career.

Speaking to the MyAlbion podcast, he explained: “I came home from scholarship in America and I had been first team All-American - considered to be one of the best 11 players in the country at the time. I’d done well – but that meant nothing back in the UK.

“I sent letters to clubs hoping for trials to turn up in my boots and earn a contract. I had offers of trials in England, but in the meantime I was waiting .

“My dad contacted Falkirk my local club and fortunately one of the coaches remembered me when I was younger. I went in aged 22 and changed with the young guys but that didn’t bother me. We trained as one group and within ten days I was offered a contract.

"I had offers but it was Leeds I definitely had a trial at. They had offered me two weeks but I had the opportunity at Falkirk and I was enjoying it - it seemed a lot to give up.

“I had a trial offer from England but a contract in Scotland - I had to take it, I was a professional footballer.”

Weir went on to win medals with Falkirk and Hearts before a move to Everton and return to Rangers.