Exciting young Scottish winger Ben Gannon-Doak was one of the bright sparks in Scotland’s laboured 1-0 win against Haiti, and the 20-year-old Bournemouth player has been telling BBC Scotland Sport’s Amy Canavan about the difference his rediscovered Christian faith has made in building resilience after a series of injuries …
Canavan writes:
Being in the spotlight is not new to Gannon-Doak.
At 16, he left Celtic for the bright lights of the Premier League with Liverpool.
It was far from a seamless move south, though, with the boy from North Ayrshire discovering football can be a lonely place when injured and away from home.
Then, he rediscovered God.
Brought up a Catholic, Gannon-Doak admits he "strayed away from it" for a while, before "hearing God call me, with an urge to get back into it".
"I just felt God calling me," the 20-year-old revealed in a film for BBC Scotland's A View from the Terrace earlier this year.
"I realised I started to feel a bit better and stronger and started coping better with things, and I just thought, 'Oh, that's not a coincidence'. I think that's the way it happened for me."
With God on his side, Gannon-Doak - who received a Bible from his gran - feels "strong and grounded" but it's something he practices in private.
"I'm praying before games, I read the Bible on my own - I won't really do that in the dressing room because there's a lot of different faiths in football.
"It's also just better to do it in private as you can really focus. A dressing room can be quite chaotic at times, but it's at the root of everything, including my football."
Gannon-Doak adds “God puts us where we are for a reason.”
Read the full article and watch the 5-minute news video piece at https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/clyrepwp0gno