When it was revealed last week that Rangers signing target Mikel Arteta had overcome a serious heart defect to become a professional footballer, Andrew Tait needed a grief filled second to take it in.

The retired policeman read the news of a healthy young footballer overcoming his heart disease to live a full and healthy life, and he couldn’t help thinking what might have been for his own son.

His boy, Andy, had been an aspiring young footballer, representing Scotland at youth level and signing for his local professional team as a teenager.

But any football dreams he or his family had for him died 14 months ago when he suffered heart failure at the age of just 26.

He had fallen victim to a heart defect which was most likely developing inside him since his teenage years when he was at his footballing best.

And though young Andy eventually chose a career in the police force, young Andy remained a keen footballer for various local teams in Fife and was well known as a talented sportsman.

It made the sudden death of the likeable giant even more unbearable for his devastated family.

Andrew, 55, said: “There will never be any normal days for us again.  There will only be days that were better than the last.  Everything has changed for us.  To have such a big seemingly-healthy son die like that, so suddenly and unexpectedly made it harder to cope with.”

Andrew was reminded of the overwhelming loss he and his wife Margaret suffered when he read about the heart problems the £4million rated Rangers target from Barcelona suffered at an early age.

In contrast to Andy’s case, Arteta overcame his illness to develop a flourishing career.

Unlike athletes on the continent, Andy didn’t have access to regular heart tests and they put his occasional lack of endurance down to over-exertion, like the thousands of other young lads playing football every week.

It was only after their son’s death that his family realised he had been showing slight and almost undetectable signs of the heart defect that would kill him in later life.

Andy had been just a few months short of his 27^th birthday and was out having a drink with friends when the illness struck.  He had been complaining of palpitations that night but he and his friends thought nothing of it.

He died in his sleep that night.

Weeks later, his parents were told the incredible news that he had died from heart failure.

Since then, they have been working tirelessly with the charity Cardiac Risk in the Young (CRY) to raise money for widespread heart screening for all young athletes.

The couple said the efforts put into the campaign has helped them work through their grief in the hope that they might prevent another death like Andy’s.

His father said: “ Andy was such a wonderful boy.  He was super fit, he was friendly and a joy to be around.

“When he was playing football in his late teens, there were what, in hindsight, could have been early signs of his heart disease.  He couldn’t last the 90 minutes and we thought it had been maybe a cheat infection.  Perhaps that was the start of it.

“Had there been a screening programme, then any heart defect would have been detected.

“ A simple ECG can detect problems and they can take necessary steps.  If we had thought to do that then he’ still be here.

Andy had been a star player for his school teams in his early teens and played for local clubs Glenrothes Strollers and Leslie Hearts.

When he left school at 18, he was snapped up by local First Division side Raith Rovers and was there for 18 months picking up a Scotland youth cap along the way.

He left Rovers to take up a career with Fife police and had worked his way to the Drug Enforcement Squad.  He also played with the police footie team.

His parents had hoped he would enjoy a successful career and a happy home life.

Andrew added: “ The whole thing is still devastating for us even after 14 months.  You just think, ’why the hell did this happen?’, and you ask why can’t things just get back to normal again.  But that will never happen.

“We can’t go back and change things, it can’t be reversed.  Everything in our family was great and then he died and everything changed forever.

“You have to accept it, but it’s so hard.  I lost my big, wonderful son.”

Andrew and Margaret say their fond memories of Andy help to get them through the hard times.  Andrew added: “He was a great guy, a great footballer and a wonderful police officer as well.

“He was the fifth generation of policemen in our family and I was so proud of him – I still am.

“Sometimes it can get too much to cope with, birthdays are tough and Christmas was very hard on all of us.

“I know this work with CRY is what he would want us to be getting on with and I’m sure he’d see how important a cause this is.

“At least four young people die every week due to undetected heart diseases and that is a frightening statistic to me.  More must be done to screen youngsters for diseases and defects.

“In Italy, every young sportsman is given a cardiac test each year and if we could do something like that in Scotland, then a lot of families would avoid this kind of despair.”

Andy’s sister, Lisa, 24, is also backing the CRY campaign.

The charity was set up by parents of young people who suffered loss from sudden death syndrome and heart defects, and lobbies for cardiac screening across the country to catch heart defects at an early stage.

The Tait family is now the charity’s East Coast of Scotland representatives and work at generating funds and helping raise awareness of the conditions.

Margaret said that finding the organisation was the thing that helped them through. She added: “As a mother, when you lose your son, no matter how old he is, it is like having a part of you ripped out and you feel empty.  There’s always an empty part in me now, but by working with CRY, you feel like you’re using your grief for a good cause.

“It has been so vital for us to know that we’re helping others, it has really helped us to cope with the grief and the pain since Andy died.

“He was a wonderful boy, but I know that he would have wanted us to do whatever we could to help others."