It had to end some­time. Not even Rus­sell Lat­apy could go on for­ev­er. But Scot­tish foot­ball's purists will have cause for a heavy heart when the lit­tle Trinida­di­an de­parts these shores for the last time in the next cou­ple of weeks. It seems in­cred­i­ble to think it is 10 years and about 300 games ago that the then Hi­bern­ian man­ag­er, Alex McLeish, turned to the ge­nial for­mer Por­to and Boav­ista play­er – along with the more high-pro­file Franck Sauz�e – in a bid to boost a pro­mo­tion charge from Scot­land's First Di­vi­sion. As ex­pect­ed, Hi­bs du­ly re­turned to the top flight with Lat­apy sweep­ing all be­fore him in the awards stakes.

Yet sea­son 1998-99 was an un­re­al­is­tic gauge of Lat­apy's tal­ents. A hero in his na­tive coun­try, not to men­tion a two-time win­ner of the Por­tuguese Su­perLi­ga, he should have had lit­tle prob­lem fac­ing the likes of Stran­raer and he du­ly stepped for­ward. Hi­bs fans still fond­ly re­call Lat­apy's stun­ning vol­ley in a 6�2 win over Hearts, but his gen­er­al con­tri­bu­tion was huge. At a time when Dick Ad­vo­caat was spend­ing mil­lions on for­eign tal­ent, Hi­bs had a gem of their own who had ar­rived on a free trans­fer. How their fans de­scend­ing on Tynecas­tle to­mor­row for the sea­son's sec­ond Ed­in­burgh der­by would love to have that par­tic­u­lar No10 in their ranks.

It was a shame, then, that Lat­apy's time at East­er Road end­ed in such in­aus­pi­cious cir­cum­stances. Af­ter a night out in Ed­in­burgh in 2001 with his com­pa­tri­ot and close friend Dwight Yorke, the play­er was charged with drunk dri­ving, less than 48 hours be­fore a game. Hi­bs du­ly sacked Lat­apy, but it was lit­tle sur­prise Ad­vo­caat stepped in to se­cure his ser­vices. The mid­field­er's time at Ibrox had been go­ing well enough be­fore McLeish re­placed Ad­vo­caat. The new man­ag­er, af­ter all, had wit­nessed Lat­apy's hard-par­ty­ing an­tics at close hand in the past. At the age of 34, and fol­low­ing a brief spell at Dundee Unit­ed, it seemed Lat­apy and the Scot­tish game were to suf­fer a part­ing of the ways.

It took the in­ter­ven­tions of John Hugh­es, a for­mer team-mate at Hi­bs and now Falkirk man­ag­er, to tempt Lat­apy not to quit foot­ball al­to­geth­er. And the last six sea­sons have proved why Hugh­es did the SPL a favour. Lat­apy did the man­ag­er one in re­turn, bring­ing Bri­an Lara and the West In­dies crick­et team along to the open­ing of Hugh­es' pub in Ed­in­burgh. Lat­apy has be­come a fam­i­ly man. The par­ty­ing has stopped, even if the reg­u­lar cig­a­rettes have not. It is on­ly this sea­son, in his 41st year, that he has not played a mean­ing­ful on-field part for Falkirk. It is no co­in­ci­dence that they are strug­gling at the foot of the Pre­mier League.

There have been no div­ing, kick­ing or spit­ting scan­dals in­volv­ing Lat­apy. Just that on-field grin – think Dwight Yorke – and plen­ty of mo­ments of mag­ic. By his own ad­mis­sion, Hugh­es would have moved Lat­apy in­to the back­ground at the ex­pense of younger play­ers three years ago, but for his con­tin­ued in­flu­ence. That in­flu­ence will now man­i­fest it­self as part of the Trinidad & To­ba­go coach­ing staff as the So­ca War­riors seek to re­turn to the World Cup in 2010. Lat­apy is not the type for re­grets, but a play­er of his tal­ent on­ly en­joy­ing a cameo ap­pear­ance in the 2006 tour­na­ment – the sole time he has been in­volved – is a cry­ing shame.

With de­tails of his re­turn to Trinidad be­ing fi­nalised, Lat­apy has al­most cer­tain­ly played his last game for Falkirk. Scot­tish fans should not be re­morse­ful, though. Rather, they should be de­light­ed to have had Rus­sell Lat­apy for a decade. He will be missed.