AS the transfer elevator gets set for lift off again, it’s worth noting that a Scot was in at the ground floor of football’s crazy finances.

Willie Groves, a former Scottish star with Hibernian and Celtic, sparked an amazing big-spending tsunami almost 125 years ago.

The striker, who broke into the Hibs first team at the age of 16, became the first player to be sold for the then outrageous sum of £100.

Groves broke the magical ton barrier when he later moved from West Bromwich Albion to Aston Villa in 1893.

Eleven years later, fellow Scot Andy McCombie shattered all records when Newcastle United shelled out £700 to poach him from north-east rivals Sunderland.

Incongruous as it may seem, Falkirk once held the world transfer record when they splashed out £5000 to take Scottish internationalist Syd Puddefoot back across Hadrian’s Wall from West Ham United in 1922.

Down through the decades, Scots have occasionally figured prominently among the lists of the world’s most expensive players.

Morton cashed in to the tune of £15,500 when Billy Steel headed south to Derby in 1947 while Britain remained in the grip of post-war austerity.

But it was Denis Law who perhaps set one of the most famous benchmarks when he became the first British player to break the £100,000 barrier.

The Lawman cost Italian cracks Torino £115,000 when he hit the continental road from Manchester City in 1961.

A decade later, Trevor Francis became football’s first million pound player he swapped the blue of Birmingham City for the red of Nottingham Forest.

Scotland star Andy Gray briefly held the British record when Aston Villa banked £1.5 from Wolves for his services in 1979. 

In the last 20 years football has undergone a commercial explosion thanks to lucrative TV cash, shirt sponsorship and money-is-no-object Russian oligarchs.

Across Europe, the likes of Chelsea, Manchester United and City, Real Madrid, Barcelona, PSG, Juventus think nothing about bankrolling success through spending astronomical sums on Planet Football’s best players.

This summer the transfer money-go-round is bound to switch into a higher gear and it’s an undeniable  truth that the £100million-mark will be smashed possibly, possibly more than once.

Allowing for inflation, that’s a one million per cent mark-up on the sum West Brom banked for Willie Groves all those years ago. Go figure.