Craig Gordon lays down Scotland plan as he talks Cieran Slicker and why he's carrying on

You probably know it off by heart these days. Gordon, at the ripe old age of 42, is carrying on for another year and hopes to be part of the Scotland team playing at the World Cup next summer. He’s the man who has bounced back from broken arms and legs, plus a near career-ending knee injury. Egypt have Essam El-Hadary, Italy have Gianluigi Buffon and we have Craig Gordon when it comes to legendary keepers playing well into their 40s.

Even when off the pitch, Gordon becomes more and more important. Scotland’s current goalkeeper crisis manifested itself last week when the experienced stopper was one of a few internationalists who were sidelined by injury. When Angus Gunn picked up an ankle issue just minutes into the 3-1 defeat by Iceland, the cupboard was so bare that 22-year-old Cieran Slicker - without a senior appearance - was given his debut. It went badly, at fault for all three goals.

On a family break, Gordon tuned in on TV. He is recovering well from the knock that curtailed his season early and is ready to step back into the breach again, for club and country. He should be between the sticks when he faces one of his former clubs Sunderland in his testimonial match on Saturday, July 26, ahead of what could be an exciting season under a new Hearts boss Derek McInnes.

There was sympathy for Slicker. "It's happened now,” says Gordon, holding a press conference to promote his testimonial. “I know he's a confident, strong young boy and this is right at the very beginning of his career. He's got a long time to come back from this and I think he will. He'll go back to his club and work away and try and get more game time. But that's part of his story now and it's now about the comeback. You can make that work for you. I think that's what he has to do now is accept that that's happened and move on and continue trying to improve and get more games and get back there and have another shot at it.”

Gordon admits he has been in Slicker’s shoes himself, when a keeper endures the lonely walk off a pitch knowing his mistakes have cost the team. “I'll probably let him have his holiday first and maybe get away for a little while,” says Gordon of having a chat with a man who is 20 years younger than him. “As a goalkeeper, you know you're going to make mistakes during a season. You're going to cost the team goals, every single goalkeeper for every single club all over the world. If you play a whole season, you're going to lose probably a couple of bad goals that it's going to cost your team. You have to accept that.

Goalkeepers ‘have to accept mistakes’

“You have to accept that as part of playing the position that you are going to be the reason that your team doesn't win from time to time. That's just the nature of it. You have to move past that, accept that that is the case and not be scared of it. To still do the right things, to still make the decisions. That's the only way to move on from it. It's that acceptance that's going to happen. It wasn't great, but we move on. We try and not do the same thing again.”

Gordon is the master of recovering from adversity. He was steeled for life in the professional game by a formative loan spell at Cowdenbeath - “I didn't know if I was going to be able to cope with that at 18,” he admits - and has gone on to win trophies at Hearts and Celtic, plus star in the Premier League in England with Sunderland. He has 81 caps to his name - and the plan is to clock up more. "If I'm still training well and playing well here and getting games here [at Hearts], then I'll be available until I can't play any more,” says Gordon.

Would playing at the World Cup be the pinnacle for Gordon? "It would,” he replies, without a moment’s hesitation. “There's a lot of football we've played before that. A full season here and probably win five out of six games at international level. It's going to be tough, but it's possible. That's what you go out every week, you go out trying to be the best you can be. If we can be that at Scotland, if we can get a few of the guys coming back that have been injured and get the best possible squad available, then we can give everybody a game. With it being such a short group, if we hit form then we can give ourselves a chance.”

Gordon is asked how long he can go for. "Who knows?” is the response. “I don't know that question. If you'd asked me halfway through last season, I probably might have thought that was going to be my last. Then I get to the end of the season and think I can probably go again. I think it will be another season like that where I'll do as much as I possibly can for as long as I possibly can and then see what happens.”

Retirement was a real possibility even just a few months ago. “It was right towards the end of the season,” Gordon explains on when he decided to carry on. “When things went down to one game a week, I felt better. In the second part of the season, I actually felt myself getting stronger. That was the reason I felt that I could probably still do another year.

“The European games coming thick and fast in the middle of the first part of the season was difficult. Coming back from my leg break, that was the first time I'd played a stretch of games in a row. I think it always takes quite a while to actually get back to the level you were before. I felt towards the end of the season that I could start to feel that I was getting even stronger. So, that was why I thought I could still go another year.”

Gordon could be forgiven for being, well, more forgiving on his ageing limbs. Does he give himself more downtime than before? "I don't train every single day, but I do keep going,” he says. “[During pre-season] I've still been in at Hearts three days a week and I still do stuff myself at home to make sure that I'm still ready for when the next time we're training. I'm not sure many people now totally stop for any length of time. If you stop and the other guys are not stopping, then they're going to have the edge on you. It's maybe not as intense as what it would be in a pre-season or during a season, but certainly ticking over and making sure you're doing enough and being ready for the pre-season is the norm now, I think.”

Club and country will be grateful for that. There is every chance that Gordon will be No 1 for Hearts at the start of the season and also for Scotland in their first World Cup qualifier against Denmark in September. Still so much life in the old dog yet.

Tickets for the Craig Gordon Testimonial Match – Hearts v Sunderland, Tynecastle Park, 3pm, Saturday 26th July – are on sale now through heartsfc.co.uk. Supporters can keep up to date with all of the latest Craig Gordon Testimonial information at craiggordontestimonial.co.uk