CRAIG Gordon, the Hearts and Scotland goalkeeper, has become the first man ever to be named Scottish Football Writers’ Association (SFWA) Player of the Year for a third time.
Gordon has beaten off stiff competition from Cameron Carter-Vickers and Callum McGregor of Celtic and James Tavernier of Rangers to land the coveted award.
The 40-year-old has been superb as cinch Championship champions Hearts have finished third in the Premiership and reached the Scottish Cup final in the 2021/22 campaign.
The 66-times capped internationalist also helped Scotland finish second in their Qatar 2022 qualifying group and secure a Path A play-off semi-final spot.
Rangers legends John Greig (1966 and 1976), Sandy Jardine (1975 and 1986), Brian Laudrup (1995 and 1997) and Barry Ferguson (2000 and 2003) and Celtic greats Henrik Larsson (1999 and 2001) and Leigh Griffiths (2013 and 2016) all won the SFWA award twice
However, Gordon, who won in 2006 during his first spell at Hearts and in 2015 after his debut season at Celtic, is the only player to be honoured by the nation’s scribes on three occasions.
“I am immensely proud,” he said. “I can’t quite believe that I’ve managed to win this award three times.
“It is not something that you set out to do at the start of your career, but certainly the closer I get to the end and the more I look at what I am going to leave behind in terms of the records that I have managed to gain, it is an incredible achievement.
“You go along taking one game at a time and trying your best. I am so happy to have won this again.”
