Ipswich Town’s star striker David McGoldrick has revealed that Scotland made a speculative attempt to call him up before he discovered his Irish roots.

Now the Nottingham-born 26-year-old is hoping he can continue his dream start to the season and force his way into Martin O’Neill’s squad, the latter having came to Portman Road to watch the front man in action on the day he suffered a season-ending injury back in February.

McGoldrick – who had scored 16 goals before that blow ion the goalless home draw with Blackpool – underwent surgery on the medial ligament in his right knee and, after suffering a set-back in April, Ipswich owner Marcus Evans decided to spare no expense in sending him away to one of the world’s leading knee specialists in the United States this summer.

The result was a quicker than expected recovery, the front man returning to full training little over a fortnight ago, making cameo pre-season appearances at Southend and Leyton Orient before coming on as a 44th minute sub – and scoring what proved to be the winner – in last Saturday’s impressive 2-1 home win over Fulham on the opening weekend of the new Championship campaign.

“The Irish FAI contacted me earlier this year about sorting out my passport and I’m still working on that now,” revealed McGoldrick, who said recently that he’s ready to sign a new deal with the Blues.

“There have been a few complications, but hopefully I can get that done. Of course there are no guarantees that I’m going to get picked, but maybe if I can start the season well it could happen.

“It’s something I’d like to do. Who wouldn’t want to work for Martin O’Neill and Roy Keane? The gaffer (Mick McCarthy) obviously had great success with them (reaching the last 16 of the World Cup in 2002) and he pulled me aside and said it would be a great thing for me to do.”

He continued: “I think Scotland tried to call me up last season as well actually. They saw my name was McGoldrick and assumed I had some Scottish in me, but I haven’t got any qualifications for them!

“I don’t know who discovered the Irish link – it’s through my grandparents on my mum’s side, but I was adopted as a kid and it goes through your birth parents, so that’s been the complication trying to find details about them.

“They’ve got (European Championship) qualifiers coming up. I speak to Murph (Daryl Murphy) and Hunty (Stephen Hunt) about it and they say how good it is. Murph went away with the squad in the summer (to the USA) and said that training was really good. It’s something I’d love to do.”