Soccer: Knights banking on experience

The name will ring plenty of bells among Scottish fans of a certain generation, and the New Zealand Knights hope Scott Gemmill will bring them some of the class his celebrated father Archie Gemmill did during his career.

Scott Gemmill yesterday became the Knights highest-profile signing for the second year of the A-League as the club set about pulling themselves up from a distant last placing in the inaugural season.

The 35-year-old played 26 internationals for Scotland, most recently a 2-0 loss to Austria at Hampden Park in April, 2003.

He made the bulk of his 368 English league appearances at Nottingham Forest - in the first and Premier league - and top-flight club Everton, for whom he played seven years until 2004. He parted company with lowly Oxford United a few days ago.

Archie Gemmill played 43 times for Scotland, scoring one of his country's great World Cup goals in the 3-2 win over the Netherlands in 1978, and was at Forest when they won the first of their back-to-back European Cups (now Champions League) in 1979.

Scott will bring vast footballing wisdom to the A-league side. Knights coach Paul Nevin has seen Gemmill operate as a box-to-box midfielder and in a central defensive organising role.

There will be questions over the wisdom of signing a player of his age, but in addition to the on-field acumen he'll bring to a club who last season were sorely in need of a firm guiding hand, Nevin envisages the Scot playing a significant part off the field as well.

"He's happy to do either role within the framework of the team, and that speaks volumes for him," Nevin said. "I've got a plan of what type of player we need in each role. He's a very respected professional and with the young developing players we'll have in the squad, having a role model like that will be invaluable to us."

Gemmill, who is coming on a one-year deal, and his partner arrive in Auckland soon. The league starts again in August-September. The draw has yet to be announced.