And the 29-year-old is hoping manager George Burley will notice him more... in England!

"Coming down here is a fresh challenge for me," he told the Evening Post. "And if I can do well at Preston then who knows?

"If I'm lucky and things work out for me the Scotland thing is
something I might get involved in again."

Nicholson has three caps to his name, two of them awarded by Craig Brown in 2001 and the last in 2004 under the late Tommy Burns.

All three came while he was playing for Dunfermline. But the honours stopped when he moved north to Pittodrie.

"It's strange, but you seem to get forgotten about in Aberdeen," he said.

"There have been boys who I have played with up there who I thought should maybe have been close to getting in the Scotland squad and haven't.

Hear more from Barry Nicholson and find out how Open golf star Adam Scott is linked to Preston in our Talking Sport podcast.

"I enjoyed the experience of international football and I would love to sample it again.

"But right now it's all about getting into the Preston side and playing well. That's my priority."

Nicholson, who scored in the friendly at Chorley on Tuesday night, made his Scotland debut in April 2001 as a right-back in a friendly in Poland.

Also in the starting line-up that day was Callum Davidson at left-back.
In October that same year, the pair were team-mates again for a World Cup qualifier against Latvia at Hampden Park.

The Scots won 2-1, with Nicholson on the right side of midfield. But victory was not enough to earn them a place in the finals in Japan and South Korea and Craig Brown quit.

It was another three years before Nicholson wore the famous blue shirt again, getting a call-up for Tommy Burns' only game as manager – a 4-1 defeat by Sweden in Edinburgh.

Berti Vogts arrived and the midfielder has not been near the squad since.

"It was brilliant to play for my country," he said. "But the change of manager came at a bad time for me."

Hear more from Barry Nicholson in Thursday's Lancashire Evening Post.