Ipswich Town target Birchall

Reports indicate that the club is willing to dish out ?150,000 for the England-born player who was a member of the Soca Warriors team at the World Cup Finals in Germany.

Birchall has played some 91 matches for Port Vale but even before going into the World Cup he was attracting interest from other clubs.

And now that he has three World Cup appearances under his belt, the race has tightened.

“To be honest I know there have been interest in me but the focus was to go to the World Cup and do well. Once that is now over with, who knows what can happen.

“There will be some discussions obviously and my commitment remains with Port Vale at the moment but we’ll see how things go,” Birchall said.

English club Brighton has also reportedly shown interest in striker Jason Scotland.

And Densill Theobald may not have played a first team match for Falkirk last season but he put himself into the club’s Hall of Fame when he became the club’s first player to take the World Cup stage against Sweden earlier this month.

And the youngster, who helped nullify England and in particular opposite number David Beckham for 83 minutes of the June 15 last-gasp 2-0 defeat in Nuremberg, will now join club legends such as John Lambie, Jim Jefferies, Kevin McAllister, Crawford Baptie and Alex Parker in being honoured at the Falkirk Stadium.

“And it’s not just one player, as Russell Latapy is also in the squad and that is a great thing for the club. It just shows the calibre of player that is expected at Falkirk now,” a Falkirk spokesman said.

Theobald was elated.

“All this is in memory of my mother who passed away a few years ago.

I hope I can inspire other kids to go after their goals and I want to specially thank my teammates, Russell and the rest of the guys for looking after me and for making us put the country much more on the map now,” Theobald said.