FOOTIE coach Mark McGhee scored a winner – after inventing a puzzle app that is set to be a worldwide hit.
The Scottish No.2 designed his name game on scraps of paper on long coach trips when he played for Aberdeen in the 1980s.
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He came up with the idea for a smartphone version – where users name celebrities from a screen of 16 initials – after getting bored playing Scrabble with national boss Gordon Strachan.
McGhee, 59, said yesterday: “Gordon and I were playing Scrabble so much that we started to get a little fed up.
“One evening I suggested resuscitating the game.
“I got out of that thought, ‘These days there might be the makings of something in there.”
Ex-Dons and gaffer Motherwell – sacked last month by the Steelmen after a string of poor results – have approached Glasgow tech company Papertank, which made the prototype.
It has now been picked up by Top Publisher Puzzler and will be released next month in six different languages under the title Puzzler Name Game.
A production company wants to make a pilot for a TV quiz and there is potential for a board game. McGhee’s creation also wowed Scottish entrepreneur Chris van der Kuyl, who helped develop the hit video game Minecraft.
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McGhee – preparing for tomorrow’s World Cup clash with Slovenia in Hampden – said: “Chris said it was competitive, brilliant, a decent game.
“I’m proud to have had the courage to do it – I don’t feel fulfilled in my career as a manager. I try to show people that I am more than me.
Tony Ablewhite of Puzzler praised the app last night. He said, “There are the right ingredients to be big. “
Yesterday we recounted how McGhee urged the tartan army to flood Hampden on Sunday night – even if they BOO Scotland.
Fewer than 10,000 fans watched Wednesday’s 1-1 draw against Canada at Easter Road.
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