Andy Halliday has been speaking about Rangers’ rivalry with Hibs as the Ibrox side battled to get out of the Scottish Championship.
Having bottled the Scottish second tier under a succession of managers the season before, Mark Warburton was tasked with leading an assault on the Premiership.
As part of that the Englishman brought Andy Halliday to the Ibrox club but it is known that the Gers had their eyes firmly set on a leading Easter Road star to come in and join him.
Now, Andy Halliday has been speaking on Open Goal and has sensationally claimed that a former Hibs star once told him on the pitch that he was joining Rangers before a deal collapsed!
Scott Allan told Andy Halliday he was Rangers bound
Rangers’ pursuit of Hibs midfielder Scott Allan was big news back in the summer of 2015.
But with the Hibees also competing in the Scottish Championship, the Leith club refused to play ball with a natural promotion competitor.
As things transpired, Celtic would infamously swoop in to sign Scott Allan, effectively ending any suggestion Rangers could snap up the boyhood bluenose at the end of his contract the following summer.
Andy Halliday, who is close friends with Allan, was speaking about the situation alongside ex-Hibs stalwart Lewis Stevenson.
And the now Motherwell midfielder has revealed that Scott Allan told him on the pitch on the opening day of the season that he was all set to join Rangers.
“Rangers were trying to get Scott Allan,” said Halliday. “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’.”
Asked about the move to Celtic, Halliday said: “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.”
Should Hibs & Celtic let midfielder join Rangers?
The story of Scott Allan’s career is one which is tinged with sadness.
Having broken through at Dundee United, the midfielder was initially snapped up by West Brom but struggled to live up to his early potential down south.
Spending time out on loan at a number of lower league English clubs, Allan eventually returned to Scotland with Hibs where Rangers tried to sign him in 2015.
But with Celtic swooping in with the lure of Champions League football, Scott Allan was eventually farmed out on a number of loan deals across an underwhelming four year stint at Parkhead.
No-one really wants to say it, but Celtic’s determination to prevent Allan signing for Rangers hamstrung the midfielder’s career at a vital moment and really had a sizeable impact on the proceeding seasons.
Returning to Hibs, where the midfielder had heart issues, Allan has fallen down the divisions and now turns out for Kelty Hearts in Scottish League One at the age of 32.
How different it might’ve been had both Hibs and Celtic allowed Allan to join Rangers, who could’ve played a key role at his boyhood club for many, many years.
It’s symbolic of a poorly managed career which saw one of Scottish football’s most generational talents never truly grasp his potential in the game.
Still, there’s always that famous pass in a 6-1 Hibs humbling at Ibrox to look back on.
