James Penrice has admitted that there was a point in his career when he thought football might be finished for him.

Well, James, I have to say that I don’t think you quitting football would have been a bad move. Because you are pretty bad at it, and there were various alternative professions you might have pursued.

Because having examined some of your recent performances and certain memorable moments on the pitch, I believe there are several occupations for which you might have shown a rather natural talent.

After all, every footballer deserves a Plan B.

So let’s look at your career options had you quit.

First up, mixed martial arts.

I have to start here because that karate-style kick on an Aberdeen player was quite something. I have seen plenty of questionable challenges in Scottish football, but that particular contribution to the Beautiful Game looked more like an audition for a cage fight.

Perhaps Penrice has been hiding his true talents all along. Why bother chasing a football when you can demonstrate your kicking technique directly on an opponent? With a little professional training, he could exchange the football pitch for an MMA cage.

Of course, there is one small detail.

In mixed martial arts, kicking your opponent is generally permitted within the rules. In football, it can result in a rather inconvenient early shower. Still, every cloud has a silver lining. He is playing for the right club to get away with it.

My second suggestion is Hollywood stuntman.

Penrice appears to possess an extraordinary ability to hit the ground with the sort of dramatic conviction usually reserved for action movies. One moment everything is perfectly normal, and the next he is down as though somebody has fired a cannon in his direction.

I have to admire the commitment. The timing, the theatrical movement, the apparent suffering. It is all there.

Imagine him working alongside Hollywood’s biggest action stars. Explosions, car crashes, spectacular falls from buildings. No problem for James. He could probably make a perfectly ordinary stumble look like a life-threatening incident.

And so if the football career doesn’t work out, perhaps a stunt agency could be his next destination.

I am sure they would appreciate such dedication to the art of falling.

Career number three: undercover agent.

Now, this one requires a little more imagination.

An undercover agent needs several important qualities: the ability to blend into the background, remain unnoticed, disappear when necessary and, most importantly, avoid attracting unwanted attention. I have to wonder whether Penrice might already possess some of those skills.

How else do you explain escaping punishment altogether for that challenge at Hampden?

Perhaps he has perfected the art of disappearing from the referee’s field of vision. A little movement here, a perfectly timed distraction there, and suddenly everybody is looking somewhere else. MI6 might want to investigate.

Although I would advise against giving him any particularly sensitive assignments. If he is spotted, he could always fall dramatically to the ground and pretend that somebody else caused it.

Career number four has to be Olympic diving.

If Hollywood doesn’t call, there is another sporting discipline waiting for him. I have already mentioned his ability to reach the ground with impressive theatrical commitment, but perhaps we have been looking at his talents from the wrong perspective. Maybe football simply isn’t the right sporting environment for such a gifted performer.

With the correct training, a diving board, a swimming pool and a panel of international judges, Penrice could finally find a sport in which his relationship with gravity might be properly appreciated. Imagine the possibilities.

The controlled approach, the spectacular leap, the perfectly executed entry into the water and, naturally, the artistic interpretation of the performance.

I would particularly enjoy watching the judges assess the degree of difficulty. Given some of the things we have witnessed him do on a football pitch, I suspect he might already be working towards a perfect ten.

And finally, fiction writer.

This one might suit the whole Ibrox environment particularly well. Why not create an entire fictional universe where everything is bigger, better and more magnificent than reality? He could call it The Chronicles of Ibrox.

A magical kingdom where every player arrives believing he has joined the greatest institution in the land, every defeat is somebody else’s fault and every questionable challenge somehow escapes proper examination.

I can already see the cover. And if writing novels proves too demanding, there is always another career option available: sports journalism.

Given some of the creative interpretations of footballing reality that appear in certain newspapers, I suspect he would find himself among kindred spirits. Perhaps he could specialise in heroic tales of revival, destiny and inevitable domination.

There would certainly be no shortage of material.

Jokes aside, I do find the whole thing rather amusing.

Penrice once genuinely wondered whether his football career was going anywhere. Partick Thistle had dropped into League One, he was part-time and he was thinking about courses and life beyond the game. Livingston eventually gave him another route into full-time football, and now he has ended up at Ibrox and in the Scotland squad.

He may not have the talent for the football pitch, but between the cage fighting, Hollywood stunts, undercover operations, Olympic diving and fantasy writing there are plenty of possibilities if he ever does decide to quit.

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