Pedram Ardalany now belongs to Glasgow

Telegraph – It is the things that Pedram Ardalany is too wary of discussing in detail which are, in many ways, the most revealing.

His reply is brief, but studiously courteous. "I am sorry, but I would rather not go into the reasons. Please understand, it is very difficult for me to talk about politics."

Ask him to reveal the depth of his anguish at being forced to leave behind his mother and sister and subsequently step off a plane at Luton Airport, deposited into a land of strangers without being able to offer a word of English by way of communication, and he smiles gently. "It was not easy. It made me very sad and it was scary but..."

Ask him how he felt when, after abandoning the Ardalany family's tyre business and their comfortable home in Teheran, he and his father would spend three bleak months locked away in a refugee camp before being sent to the notorious Sighthill area of Glasgow with its 10 tombstone-grey, high-rise apartment blocks, and he shrugs matter-of-factly. "Sighthill is not as bad as some people say."

Ask him what it is like to be a Muslim male of 18 living in Britain, and he answers softly. "I used to be a Muslim, but since coming to live in Scotland I have chosen to be baptised."

Ardalany may have embraced Christianity, but it is the alternative Scottish religion of football that could provide him with a second escape route into another new life.

After months of lobbying, six weeks ago he was granted a work permit by the Home Office, a priceless document that was immediately followed by the offer of an 18-month professional contract with Partick Thistle.

Having existed on government hand-outs for three years, father and son now consider themselves to be wealthier than the Beckhams in comparative terms. "We were not rich in Iran but we had a comfortable home and a nice way of life, so it was hard for us - financially and for our self-respect - to have to depend on benefits. Now that I have a good wage my father [Naser] can go to college to learn English so that hopefully he, too, can get a job one day."

There has been much impassioned prayer among the long-suffering lost souls who frequent Firhill Stadium that Ardalany, whose appearances thus far have been restricted to the club's reserve and under-19 teams, represents the Iranian Pele. But while manager Ian McCall is excited by the prospect of unleashing the teenager upon an unsuspecting Scottish First Division, he tempers any enthusiasm with an understandable note of caution.

"If you're strictly talking natural talent, then Pedram's as good as any 18-year-old around," McCall says. "If it was down to skill alone, then he'd make it, no question.

"When I first watched him in a trial game, he was head and shoulders above everyone else on the pitch. But he has still to adjust to the pace of the game in Scotland.

"He's been picking up wee injuries here and there because of his Jim Leighton legs [a nice euphemism for 'bandy'] so we've had him fitted with heel-raisers to sort out his gait.

"Obviously, Pedram has been through a lot which we haven't gone into in any detail, because he joined the club on merit not on sentiment, but maybe that's why his work ethic is second to none. He's very respectful to the staff, very humble and very dignified although, just like any young Scots boy, he can lose the plot during a game.

"Personally, I couldn't care less where he's come from, but a lot of immigrants find it a bit of a struggle at times and Pedram is lucky that he has a real chance to make something of his life over here. We don't treat him any differently because he's had a tough time of it, but he's taken the first step and who knows how many steps lie ahead for someone with his gifts?"

Ardalany's journey to north Glasgow began as a wide-eyed seven-year-old in Teheran, where he would squat down in front of the television to watch football from England, Italy, Turkey -"anywhere, even the Iranian league".

While still at junior school he was signed by Saipa - the Iranian champions - graduating through the various age groups until the political situation in Iran meant a hurried departure.

"The coaches always said very nice things, so from a young age I dreamed of becoming a professional. I thought that would be with Saipa, of course, not Partick Thistle, who I did not even know existed at the time."

It was in the unfamiliar surroundings of the Strathclyde Evangelical Churches Football League that Ardalany first attracted the attention of Scotland's senior clubs with his outstanding displays for Greenview against the likes of Irvine Nazarene, Kilbirnie Salvation Army and East Kilbride Baptist. According to Greenview's official website, "the boy Ardalany is a genius. He's got everything - except he can't header or tackle and doesn't have a clue what you're saying to him. Give him the ball, though, and he can make it sing and dance. Pedram has scored some wonder goals and entertained us with some beautiful skills. He has left opponents mesmerised with that body swerve. Many have said that he is far too good for us, and they are right. We certainly wish him well wherever he ends up playing".

It appeared that Ardalany would wind up playing for Celtic until, after starring in three trial matches and being offered a contract, the lack of the necessary work permit precluded his putting pen to paper.

"I played against Hibs and also against a Swedish club and an Irish team. Celtic told my lawyer to let them know the moment my work permit came through, but by that time I was training with Partick Thistle. And I owe the club my thanks for persuading the Home Office that I might have a future as a professional footballer in this country. Kilmarnock also wanted to sign me, but I am very happy at Firhill. Everyone is very friendly."

When McCall reveals that "nothing he encounters in his football career will ever be as tough as what he's already been through", it is impossible for us to comprehend the traumatic events that Ardalany has undoubtedly experienced in his short life.

Sighthill, for instance, with its reputation for heroin addicts and sporadic outbreaks of racial violence aimed at the large immigrant population mainly drawn from Iran, Iraq, Somalia and Kurdish Turkey, is no place for the faint-hearted.

"It's not the best place in the world," he admits, "but it is far from being the worst place in the world, either. We are very thankful just to be given somewhere to live. I am told it used to be a very violent area, but I think it is improving. I certainly have not suffered any problems.

"Although I knew no one when we first arrived, I have made a lot of friends and most people are very friendly - especially the Partick Thistle supporters."

Even the infamous Scottish weather has failed to dampen Ardalany's youthful enthusiasm for his new home. "It is frequently far colder in Teheran in December, when the temperature can reach -10C.

"Summer is entirely different. In Iran, 40C is not unusual, whereas 40F is more normal in Glasgow.

"But the biggest difference is in the food. In Teheran, my mother will cook a stew for three or four hours, but here in Glasgow everyone seems to eat fast food. Have I tasted a deep fried Mars bar? No. Haggis? Yes, and it is the only thing about Scotland that I can honestly say I hate."

Having taken his first step into football, let us permit this eminently likeable young man one further giant leap of the imagination. Come some future World Cup, would he prefer to represent Iran or Scotland in the finals?

"Glasgow made us welcome when it was no longer possible to live in Iran. Scotland is our home now, so for me it is an easy choice. It is the blue shirt of Scotland that I would want to pull on."

There will be those who are of the belief that father and son should be sent back from whence they came, that Britain's growing refugee population is a drain on the nation's resources and a risk to our security. However, Partick Thistle fans will tell you that it is fast approaching the time of the year when Scots at home and abroad tend to reach for the songs and verses of Robbie Burns, who wrote:

Then let us pray that come it may,
As come it will for a' that.
That sense and worth o'er a' the earth,
Shall bear the gree, an' a' that.
For a' that an' a' that,
It's coming yet for a' that,
That man to man, the world o'er,
Shall brothers be for a' that.