“Turncoat Miller” - Am ah bovverred!!

Yes, I am bothered. A bit dissapointed.

But hardly devestated.

At the time of writing there’s no deal done - Kenny Miller, currently at Wolves, might yet go somewhere else on the strength of his great displays for Scotland against Italy and Norway in the space of four World Cup qualifying days in the autumn. But even if he doesn’t join Celtic, be it this month or in the summer that he doesn’t join them, I’m irked that, as a former Rangers player, he’s talked seriously to them in the first place.

The damage, as they say, is done.

But let’s quantify that damage, explain where it comes from and consider how “best” to express it.

This is hardly a Mojo sitiuation in reverse. The religion aspect is a total non-starter these days and the other half of the controversy surrounding Mr Johnston’s signing for The Teds in 1989 was the fact he’d been paraded around Celtic Park a few weeks earlier, wearing the hoops, shaking hands with Billy McNeil and generally declaring his gratitude at being allowed to return to his beloved Paradise. He ACTUALLY stabbed Celtic in the back. With Kenny miller, there’s probably been a few behind-the-scenes enquiries either way about a possible return to Ibrox but nothing public.

It seems that Alex McLeish, who sold him to us from Hibs and then allowed him to be sold to Wolves on the day he took over at Ibrox, has no real interest in bringing Miller back to The Palace. If ye want to get chippy about it, Celtic are merely picking up our cast-offs . (but let’s not get too smart - they also got another Kenny, back in the seventies, who was quite keen to play for The Gers. Like Richard Gough, Dalglish was another one who did us damage on many an occassion because we made the wrong decision).

Furthermore, Kenny Miller isn’t exactly a Rangers legend. Many argue that he would have been if we’d hung onto him - his inability to stay in the Premiership would go against that conclusion. There was always something of a split decision amongst Beardom as to whether or not we were too hasty to let him go. The whole indecision over Kenny’s Ibrox career isn’t helped by the fact he arrived just as Dick Advocaat’s stock was falling and he was off on loan and then sold just as the McLeish revival was about to happen. No-one was ever really sure if Miller’s failure at Rangers was down to Kenny Miller or Rangers. Either way, he never hit the heights with us that Mojo did with Celtic and neither did he declare on a regular basis that he was a loyal Rangers fan. There was never any badge-kissing involved. This was not a player giving us John Brown-ish pledges loyalty or Goram-esque displays of history-making genius.

As the Jam would say, This Is The Modern World. If Figo can leave Barca for Madrid, Kenny Miller won’t really rock the planet by going to Celtic after 18 months at Rangers. I don’t think he’ll even rock Scotland - despite the inevitable best efforts of the tabloids.

Ex-Old Firm player goes to other half of Old Firm. Give the rags their due - it is still a helluva rare occurrence. Everyone today was immediately talking about Mojo and Alfie Conn. The fact we can all instantly pick those names out from the history books tells its own story.

tSome of us remembered that the likes of Craig Beattie was on Rangers’ books before going over to Celtic. We may be inclined to feel that, after Dick Advocaat’s failed attempt to bring Pierre Van Hooijdonk to Ibrox, this is the second fairly high-profile case of a player simply treating the Old Firm as nothing more than two big clubs who will pay him to ply his trade close to his family home. Alfie Conn and Kenny Miller are the true professionals. (Mojo was an unintentional pioneer and/or a headbanger - and a far better player than Kenny Miller).

There was Alex Bennett who signed for us from Celtic in 1908 but, a few reserve and youth players aside, there’s been very few moves like this. There’ll probably be Celtic fans who don’t want him - it’d be different if he were Dado Prso - but the risk for our eternal foe is Miller will fail at Parkhead and leave them looking as stupid as Southampton did when Harrdy Redknapp couldn’t do anthing for them.

Again, the moment we signed Mojo we’d smashed our sectarian signing policy - his on-field abilities thereafter were very, very secondary: The main battle had been won.

Miler scored memorably against Monaco in the Champions League - and may now get the chance to become the first man to score for two different Scottish clubs in that competition - and he rattled in five against St Mirren one fine day. I was at both these games, as well as the Sunday evening he netted in a win over Aberdeen at Pittodrie, and the passing sentimentality I attach to them is why I don’t want him, in a perfect world, to sign for Celtic.

We’d all like to think our club has an affect on players which means they’ll never want to sully themselves by playing for our derby rivals but, let’s be honest, that only applies when you’re in a winning Rangers team. Kenny Miller doesn’t really have too many great memories to spoil.

Me? I’ll, of course, have to give him dog’s abuse if he’s wearing their shirt in an Old Firm game but I do that to any celtic player. I really don’t think he’s worth any special attention other than curiosity. I was more dissapointed when Celtic signed Roy Keane.