DARREN FULLERTON: The local boy who has kept his cold feet on the ground.

Byline: DARREN FULLERTON

BELFAST City Airport was its usual maelstrom of blinkered commuters and dizzy weekend revellers heading to Irish theme bars on the mainland when a dark suited official finally approached.

"He'll be coming through those side doors shortly," he whispered, hand twitching on a hefty security radio as he offered up a passable impression of Kevin Costner in The Bodyguard.

It is almost 18 months ago and a BBC Northern Ireland camera crew is awaiting the arrival of Jimmy Nesbitt on the morning of the 2003 Nationwide Irish Cup Final between Glentoran and Coleraine at Windsor Park.

BBC had requested a pre-match interview, and Nesbitt - Coleraine's best known and most consistent advocate beyond these shores - had kindly agreed. It wasn't a problem. It rarely is when Nesbitt is concerned. He'd help the Beeb in its hour of need.

We all have our views on people without having ever met them, pressed flesh or made eye contact in conversation.

But I can now reveal that Nesbitt is mesmerised by the heights he has reached in an acting career that has taken him from helter skelter school productions to television celebrity and dazzling movie screens.

I'm sure he is dazed by the stomach churning rollercoaster journey a homegrown talent must take from anonymity to fame and all the unwanted headlines and intrusion it crashes through along the way.

I'm convinced because Nesbitt's body language told me so as the side-doors in the airport foyer finally fizzed opened just over a year-and-a-half ago. I know because the moment revealed an unassuming country boy who just happens to have made good 'across the water.'

The Cold Feet and Murphy's Law star, in faded jeans and dark blue jacket, was struggling to tame a kit bag on his shoulder as he smiled weakly and tip-toed his way through the crowd.

There was no nonchalance, little hint of a swagger. His pose revealed more of an embarrassment that airport staff had afforded him some form of elevated status. He made a quiet beeline to his father and a young relative, head bowed, shoulders hunched.

It was the walk of a prophet who returns to his land ready to field snide accusations from those who have little comprehension of what it takes to survive in the front line of public life.

It was the walk of someone who knows he has a target on his backside for the many snipers who sit on sidelines and sharpen their arrows and cynicism on easy targets.

Jimmy Nesbitt has done well for himself, so he's there to be shot at. That, essentially, is the age-old argument.

He's there to be ridiculed because of his sugary adverts for Sky's pay-per-view Premiership coverage. He's there to be lampooned because he is suddenly the beaming face of the sterile, PLC driven, greed-ridden English game.

He is to be mocked because his success has led him into the inner sanctums of Old Trafford, Anfield and Highbury. He's there to be crucified because he lent his name to a theme song for the England football team last summer.

He has forgotten his roots, sold his soul to the Premiership devil, done the dirt and so on, and so forth. I've never bought the hard-sell though.

In Nesbitt I see someone who once admitted that his one sporting dream was to play in Coleraine's Irish Cup winning side of 1977. "Would you swap all your fame for that?" he was asked. "In a heartbeat," was his reply.

I see a man who is just as eager to spend time in the company of Marty Quinn and Pat McAllister as Sir Alex Ferguson and Roy Keane, someone who was named honorary president of the Friends of Coleraine FC fundraising initiative.

I see someone who speaks warmly of the Irish League - like on Sky's Soccer AM a couple of weekends ago when he told a bemused Helen Chamberlain and Tim Lovejoy that Coleraine is his 'passion.'

"I love Coleraine and I am trying to get behind something in Northern Ireland that instills that passion in kids again," said Nesbitt.

"Irish League football is a good day out with your dad and it beats hanging around on the streets. Kids love going out with their dad, but it has gone out of fashion and I really hope people start to do it again," he added.

While some of us play a precarious financial future.

It was also a true mark of the man behind the Premiership ads, England jersey antics and Christmas 'Eat My Goal' DVDs aimed at the Essex boy Chav brigade.

It was the mark of someone with a head for good business - but a 'local boy done good' who knows where his heart lies.

For that, Jimmy Nesbitt deserves a peaceful Christmas from us all.