GRAHAM GANO will treat Super Bowl 50 in San Francisco on Sunday like any other game – but the stakes could not be higher.

The Arbroath-born kicker is looking to boot Carolina Panthers to their first title when they face Denver Broncos.

Carolina's only other Super Bowl appearance was 12 years ago when former Amsterdam Admiral Adam Vinatieri kicked a field goal with four seconds left to give New England Patriots a 32-29 win in Houston.

Gano, 28, is taking all the madness of Super Bowl week in his stride as he plots the Broncos' downfall.

"I have been approaching it the same this week as every other week. The stakes might be a little higher, but in all reality it's just another football game," he said.

"When I go to the stadium, I always put my wife and kids' initials on my knuckles and just get ready and dressed.

"Then I just go out and warm up, check out the field, come in and be with the team and then be ready for the game."

Gano is in line to be the second Scot to win a Super Bowl ring after Greenock-born Lawrence Tynes won two with New York Giants.

His career has mirrored that of Tynes, both born in Scotland, taking up American football at high school in Florida – and both wear the No.9 shirt.

The Panthers' kicker admits that Tynes has been an inspiration for him as he bids to become the second Scot to win a Super Bowl.

"I think I started following him probably my third or fourth year in high school," Gano revealed.

"He had a great career with the Giants, kicked really well there, and had a lot of big kicks.

"We have a really similar background, growing up in the same area and both our dads were in the military, and both our mums are Scottish.

"It’s just funny how it happened, we share the same agent too. He definitely was an inspiration for me just seeing a guy from Scotland have so much success."

Tynes is the only man in NFL history to kick overtime field goals to send his team to Super Bowls, famously at a frozen Lambeau Field against Green Bay Packers in 2008 and then at San Francisco 49ers four years later.

"That was really special, just to see him do that. I think he is a great guy and definitely a successful kicker," Gano continued.

But the player is well aware that a kicker's career can turn on one kick.

While Tynes' famous kick at Lambeau Field earned him a multi-million dollar contract, Minnesota Vikings' kicker Blair Walsh suffered the other side when he missed a short kick at the end of a play-off game last month which gave Seattle Seahawks victory.

"You never wish anything bad on kickers, you want to see them do well. There is kind of a kicker fraternity," Gano explained.

"I have talked to guys on the phone that I have never met in person before that played in the NFL for a while.

"The guys that do it, they know what they we are going through, you know what they are going through.

"Blair [Walsh] is a great kicker, I’ve been asked about that but as far as I’m concerned he’s done a great job up there in Minnesota. He’s had a fantastic year.

"It's unfortunate the way it ended, but that doesn’t change my thoughts on him. He is still a Pro Bowl kicker and he's no doubt in my mind going to bounce back and do well from now on."

Gano, who still has family in the Arbroath area, has hinted he will be back in Scotland after the Super Bowl, hopefully with a ring in his luggage.

"I would love to take my wife back and visit Scotland and visit my family," he stressed.

"We have a lot of family that live around that area. My aunt, uncle, and sister, a lot of cousins and things like that.

"Hopefully I will get to go back someday and bring my wife and my kids back – that would be a lot of fun."