The Albion Rovers may not be destined for sporting stardom but a Robert Duvall film is set to honour the small-town team on the big screen.

It's a fair bet that the Hollywood star and film-maker is the most famous person yet to visit the Lanarkshire football club that plays a starring role in Duvall's movie A Shot At Glory.

The Queen Mum, in her adolescence days in Glamis, once saw the Rovers play Forfar, but that was an away game and doesn't count.

Scotland’s own Ally McCoist stars in the picture, which Duvall began making a couple of years ago in and around dilapidated Coatbridge. Stars, that is, if the film -- which has been put back further than Duvall's hairline -- is ever released.

The ground opened in 1919, and surely hasn't changed noticeably since. The opening season marked the club's one flirtation with glory and grandeur when the Wee Rovers (goodness knows who the big ones are!) reached the final of the Scottish Cup by beating mighty Rangers in a second replay at Parkhead. They went down 3-2 to Kilmarnock and almost 97,000 watched them.

Ten days ago just 40 souls turned up to watch the Rovers take on bitter local rivals Airdrie. It's a one-way bitterness, really, because the Airdrie support is presently turning its ire on the club's new ownership over who should hold the title deeds (there is talk of a lease) to the new stadium, the creation of which pitched the club into bankruptcy and administration by a firm of international accountants, one or two of whom have had death threats as a result. But that's another script, and one surely worthy of the Coen Brothers.

The rickety old stadium has, at various times, played host to speedway and greyhound racing in an effort to balance the books and can apparently hold 2500, although that hasn't been tested since the old king died. There are considerably bigger Buckfast parties in Coatbridge than Cliftonhill crowds.

The record attendance is a rib-cracking 27,500, but the folk were a lot smaller, leaner and keener then.

The seats in the grandstand were bought from Third Lanark FC when the club became the last one to permanently fold in 1967 and new floodlights, installed in 1998, included lamps from Cardiff Arms Park, when they knocked it down to build anew.

Duvall, McCoist and a minor galaxy of ageing Scottish footballers were brought together in May 1999 to film action sequences for A Shot At Glory by Albion Rovers' current manager John McVeigh, who at the time was boss of another, slightly larger Rovers, Raith.

McVeigh's a local laddie who lives a short corner away from Cliftonhill and the cash from the filming probably kept the Coatbridge club's overdraft from being called in. It didn't do much for his tenure at Raith, however, because he clashed with the directors over this, and other matters, with the Raith board alleging he had used the club's players as extras on the Friday before the season's Saturday opening game against St Mirren, which they proceeded to lose 6-0.

McVeigh is one of the game's combative characters, not that you'd dare say that to his face, but, honestly, a brick cludgie would come apart at the seams in his presence. Another of the allegations against him aired recently in court, where he brought an unfair dismissal case, was that he grabbed his goalkeeper by the throat after a less than satisfactory performance and had to be torn off him. The goalkeeper in question is 6ft 4in and about 20 years younger. Sadly the incident was not captured on film.

McVeigh took over at Cliftonhill when the club was, officially, the worst senior team in the country, slap-bang at the bottom of the Third Division which, of course, is actually the fourth. Albion Rovers' progress in his first season, the last one, was remarkable, managing to put two clear places between themselves and the new bottom dogs, Elgin City. Elgin City are renowned for being so bad they had to invent new derogatives about them -- most, sadly but predictably, involving sheep. Not many people know that Gary Lineker scored his only goal in Scotland against Elgin, but then fellow TV presenter Sue Barker could probably do the same.

Rovers went from being a part-time team pre-McVeigh, training on Tuesday and Thursday evening, to a full-time one with 37 players on the books. This was achieved by judicious use of government employment training grants, as the place became a kind of school for the sort of kids who never paid attention. The real children of Albion Rovers they were, even if the majority of them were between 18 and 20. That adventurous use of grant aid has now been somewhat curtailed by central government. Rovers supporters claim it's a dark plot by the chancellor of the exchequer, a notorious Raith Rovers supporter.

Another of the claims used by McVeigh's previous employers in their defence of ousting him was that he bullied young players, an allegation which has surfaced at Cliftonhill, which he denies then and now. He is certainly tough on his charges. He took them recently to the sand dunes at Gullane, much beloved of the late Jock Wallace and where many a Rangers player involuntarily gave up his breakfast, although they could afford to, unlike the Rovers' lads.

Cliftonhill will be seen in the much- delayed Duvall vehicle A Shot At Glory, if and when it is premiered in the autumn. Duvall plays the manager of a small town team, not unlike Rovers, and to add to the verisimilitude McVeigh is cast as his assistant. The team, Kilnockie, get to the Scottish Cup Final against Rangers. So they can still dream in Coatbridge. And they do. The team's semi official website (there isn't an approved one) is called premierchamps.com

The reality is an opening fixture next Saturday away against East Fife at Methil and the ambition is an improved league position on last year. There have been talks with Airdrie -- who cuffed them 5-2 in a pre-season friendly -- about ground-sharing at the sparkling new New Broomfield, but they seem to have foundered in the vituperation and the fan boycott which is going on up the road.

A further long throw away, Motherwell have a recuperated stadium and between the three Lanarkshire points on the compass a kind of football Bermuda Triangle has taken place. The fans simply keep disappearing. Fewer and fewer they may be at Cliftonhill, but then it only takes one to keep a dream alive.