So I posted this Q after nearly a day of banging my head of the wall and shortly after posting found "an" answer, mostly out of the process of elimination.
In GitExtensions I opened the GitBash and navigated to the project's parent directory - which holds the project file. Then I ran the following command the clone the project into a directory of the name I wanted and that matched what the project file was expecting:
$ git clone https://www.github.com/myUserName/myRepositoryName theNeededDirectoryName
Now the contents of the repository are in the directory theNeededDirectoryName
which is the sub-directory I required.
The project file has opened OK, will build, commit and push. BUT opening the solution in visual studio will no longer allow me to "start" debugging - only "attach" - dont know what this is but the OP is answered