Scott Allan, Rangers fan and professional footballer, signed last week for a football team in a higher league, who will (realistically) pay him several thousand pounds more than any other offer on the table, and afford him a chance to sit on the bench in a higher league.
Ultimately, Allan, like most other footballers, went for the money and the outside chance of his improvement as a professional being sufficient to force his way through the overcrowded midfield options available to a future best-selling author, who may one day rival Stieg Larsson.
The acquisition of the player would have improved our own options but, as it is, his absence harms HFCC more than they can cope with and, frankly, the idea that anyone who is mostly sober and approaching cerebral should be ‘upset’ about this is absolutely barmy. Footballers aren’t bound by childhood bondage. And nor should their (very recent) social media utterances and asides, nor their interviews about their fondness for a certain team, be held against them or held up as some sort of impediment to professional fulfilment, even when they are revealing and run contrary to the propaganda we are too used to witnessing.
To take but one example: One of Liverpool’s greatest Sky era footballers – Mr. Gerrard – was a childhood Everton fan, and the picture of him in his wee blue home jersey is as cute as the one of wee Scott in his Gazza-era RFC top. Did it matter a jot to him that he won all of those league titles trophies across Stanley Park? Of course not. Did he go to actual Everton games as a fan, in his 20s, while playing for another team? Well, of course not, but let’s not dwell on the small details because the big picture is pretty obvious.
It seems a little impolite to bring it up (again) but those footballers who are actually ‘fans’ of clubs in a way recognisable to you and I (those who are actually supporters, and for whom the team – OUR team - takes up way too much time, money and emotional investment) is miniscule; somewhere near to the number of people in Edinburgh who actually like football.
To make it as a footballer you need to put in the hours and usually work hard to progress through the system: school team; boys’ team; local and regional and national representative levels; all the way toward a professional contract with a senior club. This means playing a lot of games. For some it means playing twice a weekend, consistently, for years – often all the way through your late primary and early secondary school torture. In short: it doesn’t leave a lot of time for people to spend going to see ‘their’ team. There are exceptions to this – you can see even in the present Rangers side that Mr. Halliday is a rare example of someone who (within professional boundaries) would have done almost anything to get a chance to pull on the RFC jersey – but that’s why they stand out.
We don’t want to drift too far toward the notion that we’re just watching a reality show - which is more often or not a television product first, and a sport somewhere in the middle – and effectively rooting for laundry, but it does seem that the suspension of disbelief so often required to truly enjoy entertainment is magically amplified in the hearts and minds of your average football fan to the extent that we incorporate some form of alternative reality as if it were as natural a process as berating William Collum. No amount of spin, bluster or prepared PR sound-bites can mask the reality that professional footballers are too easily (and too often) willing to accommodate the most displeasing penetration by forces unworthy and foul in order to cultivate their image and boost their monthly pay, even if it seems a little too hot to sleep at night, at least at first. There are few redeemable Darth Vaders in this story.
But perhaps there’s still hope.
Kenny Miller will be in the Rangers Hall of Fame one day (unless they do the decent thing and blow it up) and I will (attempt to) applaud him for his efforts. To say this is a turnaround in my thinking is to put it mildly – when Miller signed for Rangers (again) in 2008 I wanted nothing to do with this ex-Celt. Or indeed the manager we had at the time (his name escapes me but I think he won a few trophies). My huff – for that’s what it was – lasted up to and just after Kenneth popped a couple in at the correct end during a Parkhead fixture (still not happy with the badge-thumping while he was in the hoops I believe I described his brilliant volley as a half-bounce, miss-kick or something equally gracious) but I found some grace and sense and sensibility to at least tolerate him thereafter and would refrain from the awful habit of discounting his goals from our final tally every weekend.
And, cards on the table time and let’s be honest, I could really have done without him coming back (again, again) last year. But Miller is that rare thing; he possesses that special quality that can convince even the most stubborn wretch to look anew upon his efforts and glory – he is a brilliant professional.
Let’s be clear – he is at present a very useful sub, who will make a valuable contribution this season so long as he is used sparingly and we don’t come to rely upon him from the start for any lengthy period, but it’s his attitude, his application, his commitment that really shine through.
It helps Miller’s case that he is not a West of Scotland bampot sort, and that he is, by most accounts, a bit of a strange but essentially harmless individual who has a keen understanding of his own value, and what he has left to offer at this stage of his career. We all remember that MoJo can’t come back to play in even a charity game due to the, erm, erratic nature of his relationship with the denizens of Kerrydale Street, and it’s fair to say that Alfie Conn’s decision to move to Celtic has often soured the good memories he merited as a part of the ECWC winning side, even if he did later make a living working in a Bluenose bar. But many a player has ‘supported’ one half of the Glasgow divide and went on to play for the other and some outsiders had the choice between the two and came down on the side that best suited them. It’s to Miller’s credit that throughout he has not appeared to be bothered in the slightest by the daft people who objected to his move to Celtic or his return to Rangers. It’s no longer even an issue, far less a problem.
And, as such, whatever Scott Allan gets up to in his career, so too will his choice soon be forgotten and he will become a star, or merely a footnote and an answer to a question posed in a pub quiz of the future. Once you go down the path of making difficult decisions, you have to make sure your heart is in it and your head can deal with it. Mr. Miller has made the most of his career and is truly what a modern day footballing professional stands for – we can ask no more of those who live up to that term. For there is nothing worse than pretending to be something you are not or denying that which you are. That way lies the dark side.