Leigh Griffiths has revealed that he once had to play second fiddle to the gaffer’s son – despite banging in 117 goals in one season.

The striker netted the incredible tally as a kid, but it still rankles that he didn’t claim a Player of the Year award for his feats in front of goal.

“My best tally is 28 with Hibs, that’s what I scored in my second season there,” said Griffiths. So I’m only one away from equally that.

“But the most I’ve scored ever, going back to when I was a youngster, is 117. That was in my first season with Leith Athletic.

“I think I got nine in one game against Edinburgh City. I was 11 at the time and they were probably all with my left foot! That was maybe from around 30 games.

“But no, I didn’t get Player of the Year. It was a boy called Lee Currie who funnily enough was the gaffer’s son! He’s now with Newton Grange Star, playing juniors.

“I remember I got a trophy for being top goalscorer but I was kind of gutted not to be Player of the Year.”

He is almost certain to make up for it this season. Griffiths is on 27 and counting, a remarkable turnaround for a player who had fallen off the radar at Celtic until 12 months ago.

The striker is bound to eclipse his own target of 30 goals in the next few weeks and with a potential 22 games left this season – 16 league games remain with the possibility of another 6 Cup ties – it will be interesting to see what lofty number Griffiths can reach.

Certainly, though, his endeavours for Celtic seem certain to earn him the accolade of top goalscorer this season as well as the Player of the Year.

The turnaround has been down to a change of attitude as much as it has been a question of ability.

Griffiths’ stats have made him the fastest Celtic player in the modern era to rack up a half century for the club and comparisons with some of the iconic figures in Celtic’s history are bound to follow should he continue scoring at the same rate of knots.

The next target, though, is international football – and the striker has enough faith in his own ability t o believe he can replicate his Celtic goalscoring achievements with Scotland.

“Ultimately it’s up to the manager as he knows what he wants,” said Griffiths. “I think he’s seen over the last year or so what kind of player I’ve turned into.

“Nine times out of ten we play with one up front here at Celtic and that’s the same formation we play with Scotland. That’s why I don’t doubt I can do for Scotland what I’m doing for Celtic. But ultimately I need to wait on my chance.”

Griffiths has a reputation for a colourful life off the park. That he has four children to three different mothers has been well documented, but it is the distractions elsewhere that have earned him a reputation as being something of a loose cannon.

The incident at Tynecastle in April 2014 when footage emerged of him joining in with Hibs fans in the wake of an Edinburgh derby joining in with a particularly offensive song about Rudi Skacel earned him a court appearance as well as suspended two-match ban from the SFA.

It is an incident that Griffiths shakes his head and derides as “stupid” but whatever advice he has been given, he appears to have headed – and not just with regard to events on the park.

He still appears to attract incidents away from the game but he has insisted that he has learned the hard way that the only option available to him now is simply to not react.

“Even out on the streets, I am still getting abuse now when I walk in the street with my kids but I just blank it out and try and ignore it,” said the striker. “It is my wee boy now who turns around and tries to give it back – I am the one telling him off! People are younger and immature and they don’t really see people like me walking the streets with my boy or driving and it is one of the things I have to block out and ignore.”

And the Tynecastle incident is one that he has vowed will never be repeated.

“ It was just stupid to go to the pub in the first place,” he said. “When I woke up that morning, the last thing I was wanting to do was go to the pub. I just wanted to go to the game and watch Hibs winning it, but that didn’t happen.

“It’s things like that I look back on and say to myself: ‘what were you doing? Why did you do that? It was sheer stupidity but it is one of the things I’ve learned from.”

“At an Edinburgh derby, I’m always asking if I can be hidden away in a TV studio or something! The club tells me not to go to Ibrox or Tynecastle, but they don’t mind me going to the Hibs home games, as long as I’m sitting in the directors’ box and the players’ lounge,

“It’s at the away games that people try to antagonise me.

“It was hard for me when the video came out because it was Hibs fans who did that, They came saying I’m meant to be one of their own, yet some of them stuck me in it.”