Billy Gilmour spotted in adorable throwback with old Rangers pal as Uefa pay tribute to Napoli hero’s grassroots club

NAPOLI, Chelsea, Rangers, Norwich and Brighton.

All names stamped on Serie AstarBilly Gilmour‘s footballpassport.

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Clik here to view.Getty

Billy Gilmour moved to Serie A this summer[/caption]

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Clik here to view.Keith Campbell - The Sun Glasgow

He was drafted into Rangers first-team set-up just 15 years old[/caption]

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Clik here to view.Eddie Keogh Telegraph Media Group

He went on to hit the heights with Chelsea and Scotland[/caption]

But those are only his senior sides.

As the Scotland star tears up the Italian top flight alongside midfield partner for club and country Scott McTominay, Europe‘s governing body has turned the spotlight on his grounding in the game.

And in particular his first boys club in Ardrossan where his dad, Billy Senior, was also a coach.

More than 2.4 MILLION followers of Uefa on social media now know the name ‘Tass Thistle’ – Gilmour’s Ayrshire grassroots club.

And as they took a look back at where it all began for Billy Junior, they uncovered an adorable throwback image of the midfielder with futureRangers and Scotland pal Nathan Patterson, plying their trade at a grassroots game.

Patterson is wearing the colours of first club Rossvale, with his arm round his opponent and friend- and future team-mate in blue and yellow.

The tweet reads: “A boy with a dream at Tass Thistle > representing Scotland at Euro2024.

“Billy Gilmour’s rise started in grassroots football.”

But though the picture shows Patterson and Gilmour in opposing colours, they wouldn’t have to wait until they both joined Rangers or turned out for Scotland at youth stages.

The midfielder confessed Patterson was drafted in FOR Tass when the Ardrossan team was invited to a special tournament.

Speaking during a tell-all documentary on his life produced by the Scottish FA, Gilmour admitted: “Tass. Patto – that guy just follows me everywhere, doesn’t he!

“Nathan never played for my boys club right, but we had a little tournament, Scotland boys club and another few big boys club teams and we got an invite.

“So we took Nathan so we had me and Nathan in the team.

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Clik here to view.Kenny Ramsay

They’re now Scotland team-mates[/caption]

“It wisnae cheating though, he was just young.”

The midfielder also opened up on his first club too: “Tass was good days – my boys club growing up playing with all my friends from back home at school.

“We’d play at the weekend, train after school and the next day you’d talk about how good it was at training. And my dad was the coach so if they said it was cr** I was telling my dad!

“My dad has known how to get the best out of me since I was very very young.

“I’d be playing fine and he would be saying ‘He’s doing better than you’ and I’d be like ‘no he isn’t’. Then I’d get pure raging, pure annoyed.

“That’s when he’s like ‘When you’re annoyed you play the best. When you’re aggressive and you’ve got your teeth gritted that’s when you’re at your best playing football’ – that’s how he triggered me and I try to play like that all the time.”

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