Scottish football is in shock this morning after the death of Motherwell midfielder Phil O’Donnell, who collapsed during their match against Dundee United at Fir Park yesterday.

The former Celtic and Scotland player fell to the ground after 77 minutes and, with his teammates and visiting players immediately concerned for his wellbeing, first aid assistants ran on to the pitch as he lay motionless. He was carried down the tunnel and taken to nearby Wishaw where he was pronounced dead at 5.18pm. The Scottish Premier League have cancelled Motherwell’s game against Hibs on Wednesday as a mark of respect.

Home supporters, who had been in high spirits after witnessing their side score five goals in a thrilling attacking performance, quickly sensed there was something seriously wrong as O’Donnell lay on the pitch. In a sad irony, O’Donnell was about to be substituted, although manager Mark McGhee insisted this was a coincidence.

Bill Dickie, the Motherwell chairman, said: “We don’t know what it was, but there will be a post mortem. It’s a tragic, tragic incident.” A distraught McGhee added: “I can only say how devastated everyone is at the club for his wife and his young children. Nothing else matters. We will all gather round them and give them as much support as we can at this terrible time.”

Gordon Smith, chief executive of the Scottish Football Association, led the tributes to O’Donnell, saying: “This is devastating news. Phil was not just a wonderful footballer, he was a great human being.”

Peter Lawwell, chief executive at Celtic where O’Donnell won a Scottish title in 1998, said: “The club is shocked. Our thoughts are with his family, to whom we offer condolences for a tragic loss. Everyone at Celtic Park will mourn him.”

O’Donnell’s death comes just four months after Antonio Puerta, the Sevilla midfielder, collapsed and died after suffering a cardiac arrest during a game against Getafe. Marc-Vivien Foe, the former West Ham and Manchester City midfielder, suffered a similar fate in a match between Cameroon and Colombia in Lyons in June 2003.

Amid the terrible sense of waste, it is worth remembering what O’Donnell made of his career. The basic facts of the 17 years he gave British football tell a tale of solid achievement; one Scotland cap, the SPL championship, and four cup final appearances.

But context casts these feats in an even kinder light. Such were the catastrophic struggles that O’Donnell, an elegant, cultured midfielder whose game evolved to meet the different needs of his advancing years, had with injuries throughout most of his career, it is testament to his ability and tenacity that we have reason to celebrate that time at all. A less gifted, or a less tenaciously optimistic individual, would have allowed himself to drift out of the game’s consciousness, to go down as a victim rather than a fighter.

O’Donnell refused to go away. After nigh on five years at Celtic Park, where he spent more days in the stands than on the pitch, then four at Sheffield Wednesday, when it became something of an achievement for him to cross the white line at all, by the time tragedy stuck so prematurely yesterday he had made himself an integral part of the best Motherwell side since the one that gave him his initial bow all those years ago.

When O’Donnell left Fir Park in 1994, having guaranteed himself perpetual renown for scoring in the epic 4-3 cup final three years previously, his story was one of infinite promise as opposed to courage in the face of adversity. The £1.75m that Tommy Burns paid to make him the central signing of his first summer in charge at Celtic Park was a club record fee and reflected O’Donnell’s status as the preeminent emerging talent in the Scottish game. His debut season was dominated by the collective highlight of winning the Scottish Cup, the first trophy to arrive in the east end of Glasgow in six years. O’Donnell came on at half-time in the final, a tense 1-0 victory over Airdrie, replacing Simon Donnelly, who would later join him at Hillsborough.

The following two seasons were less memorable as the team failed to wrest the desperately coveted league title from Rangers’ grasp, and O’Donnell flitted in and out of the side, hampered by the first blast of the injury curse that would go on to blight him so unremittingly. The list of complaints was long: a hernia, a torn groin, a ruptured thigh, any number of minor tweaks and strains that never gave him a clear sight of genuine fitness or a clear run in the first team.

There was still, however, the odd glint of gold among all this black. Wim Jansen, a fan of lean midfielders, drafted O’Donnell into his team for the last decisive months of the season that ended with Celtic stopping Rangers from winning 10 in a row. He was a starter in the 2-0 win over St Johnstone that sealed the title for Celtic, eventually giving way to Harald Brattbakk, who would score the decisive second goal.

The injuries were a farcically constant accompaniment to O’Donnell’s time at Wednesday, a period he was later moved to sum up with the single word “garbage”. He went almost two years without playing a competitive match. He returned north in late 2003, asking Terry Butcher, then in charge at Motherwell, if he could use the Fir Park facilities to keep fit. Butcher, aware of his innate ability and seeing his obvious desire to exploit it, was quickly convinced to offer an 18-month deal, and O’Donnell went on to serve both the former England captain and Maurice Malpas, his successor, regularly and well.

Under McGhee, meanwhile, he was thriving, rolling back the years, which is just one of the many reasons why all this seems so hideously unfair.

Football’s death toll

- The death of Phil O’Donnell underlines concerns over the number of players who have collapsed on the pitch, prompting mandatory heart checks at Euro 2008. More players have died this way since 2000 than in any previous decade.

- In August this year, Seville’s Antonio Puerta, below 23, died three days after suffering several heart attacks during a match

- In 2004, Chaswe Nsofwa of Hapoel Beersheba, Brazilian Serginho and Miklos Feher of Benfica, collapsed and died, as did former West Ham midfielder Marc-Vivien Foe in 2003 n Earlier this season, Leicester’s Clive Clarke was saved by medics after collapsing during a Carling Cup tie against Nottingham Forest