Former Rangers star Andy Halliday has revealed how Scott Allan told him he would be joining him at Ibrox DURING a game for Hibs … only to be unveiled by Celtic weeks later!
Halliday, now with Motherwell, was starring for the Light Blues against Allan in a Challenge Cup tie at Easter Road and the pair, who knew each other well as they shared the same agent, were chatting as the match was going on.
The Ibrox side were keen to land the Rangers-daft playmaker around that time but Hibs were unwilling to sell to their then Championship rivals and it was Celtic who trumped the Hoops to sign the player on a four-year deal.
Halliday told the Open Goal podcast about the match in 2015 which Rangers won 6-2 early in Mark Warburton’s time in charge. He said: “Rangers were trying to get Scott Allan. I think they’d made about two or three bids, didn’t they? We’d played Hibs in the Petrofac first round, first game of the season, I’ll never forget Scotty saying to me, ‘I’ll see you on Monday’. As if he’s coming into the dressing room. We went out that night.
“About four days later he’s got the Celtic scarf above his head. Mental. I didn’t hear from him. I kind of left him to it but we’ve got the same agent so I’d heard wee bits and bobs from the agent.
“I think it just got to the point where Hibs were just saying, ‘listen we’re not selling Scott Allan to Rangers whilst we’re competing with them for the league’. I remember my agent saying that Celtic have come and obviously he wants to go to Rangers but he says he’s going to go have a word with them.”