STEVE Clarke has prowled so many of the technical areas of world football that he could compile a lonely planet guide. From Stamford Bridge and Anfield to the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow for the 2008 Champions League final, this is a man who knows his way around. Which only makes it more remarkable that the 55-year-old essentially is a Hampden Park virgin.

Leaving Paisley a matter of months before St Mirren claimed the Scottish Cup in May 1987, Clarke has only once participated in a match in Mount Florida as player, or manager: a Scottish Cup semi-final against Celtic in the colours of St Mirren in 1984. Never the most demonstrative of managers on the touchline, Clarke joked last night that his new designation should at least keep him fit.

“This will be the first time I've actually been in the dug-out,” says Clarke. “And from first impressions, it looks a hell of a long way from the seat to the edge of pitch. So I'll get my steps in.”

Hampden can be a great place when Scotland are winning – less so on a cold wet night when we are trailing against unfashionable opposition. But then I guess Clarke heard similar things about what he could expect from the Ayrshire crowd before his arrival at Rugby Park.

"I imagine it will be a proud moment,” he said, as he prepares to take charge of his nation for the first time. “Hopefully, we get a big crowd here, they get right behind the team and we give them a performance that sends them home happy.

"I was here on Saturday for the Cup final and it was a terrific atmosphere,” he added. “If you get an atmosphere like that at Hampden, with the Scottish public behind the team, then we can hopefully make this a place for the opposition to fear coming to in the future.”

Clarke was understanding about the unavailability of players such as John Fleck and Robert Snodgrass – both of whom had weddings arranged which took them out of Scotland consideration. Thankfully, he didn’t have any holidays booked himself. “I am very much lastminute.com!” he said. “My wife likes a beach holiday and I like a week sitting under an umbrella under the sun, that is what I do when we go abroad. We will manage to get away later on. For now, we concentrate on the job in hand.”

Those who watched Clarke in action at Kilmarnock will know him as a master of understatement. When he says he has had “a little look” at Scotland’s most recent matches against Kazakhstan and San Marino, not to mention the Cypriots recent matches, you can take it for granted he has been rather more forensic than that.

But perhaps what is most impressive about the way the 55-year-old has tackled this job is the sense of calmness. While he knows most of these players fairly instinctively either from Scottish or English football, “most groups of footballers are pretty much the same”. “I am sure there will be the same characters, the same jokers, the same serious ones, the same ones that doubt themselves. Every group of players is the same and it is my job to get the best out of them, that is what I will try to do.”

Typically for a training ground coach like him – he wants to maximise the time he will get to grips with them on the pitch. “I have got double sessions planned in, although I need to balance the workload,” said Clarke. “I want as much time on the pitch as I can, with a bigger load for some than others. I have to be careful with the likes of John McGinn - he was probably exhausted after the game on Saturday and even more exhausted after the celebrations! You need to look after these people and make sure they are all ready to go on Saturday for the first game.

“Callum McGregor has played a lot of games, James Forrest is the same. But they have a week's rest now and if we look after them properly in camp they should get to those two games in a reasonable physical shape.”

His mission statement with Scotland isn’t so very different from that which took Kilmarnock so far. “I looked at Cyprus’ game in Norway, I watched 60 minutes of that and they are okay,” Clarke added. “They have got some decent players but I think as a nation we have to recognise where we are, we have to have a little bit of humility and look at every opposition say right we have to be at our very, very best. If we get that mentality, if we treat every opponent with respect, then go out there and put in our best performance and hopefully that will be good enough to get us some points.”

It seems a pretty safe bet, for instance, that three at the back has been ditched. “Back four has been pretty much my go-to since I became a manager," he said. "You look at what you have there and there is the possibility to work with three at the back but for me a back four is a good way to go if you can get them well-drilled, well-organised with a good midfield shield in front of them it gives you a good platform to attack as well.

"Obviously I have my way of playing, my tactics and I can see some things that I would change,” he said. “That is what I am here to do. That is what I am paid for. I have a little look at the opposition coming up.

“But not Belgium, because I know how they are going to play and how we are going to play in that game,” he adds with a smile.